| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force
consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal,
blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against
the state; much less to nourish seditions; to author-
ize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword
into the people's hands; and the like; tending to
the subversion of all government, which is the
ordinance of God. For this is but to dash the first
table against the second; and so to consider men
as Christians, as we forget that they are men.
Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Aga-
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: that it is impossible for you to love me. I know what your duty is,
and your faith. Your father calls you, your comrades, your country,
and we are your enemies."
"And what are my father, my comrades, my country to me?" said Andrii,
with a quick movement of his head, and straightening up his figure
like a poplar beside the river. "Be that as it may, I have no one, no
one!" he repeated, with that movement of the hand with which the
Cossack expresses his determination to do some unheard-of deed,
impossible to any other man. "Who says that the Ukraine is my country?
Who gave it to me for my country? Our country is the one our soul
longs for, the one which is dearest of all to us. My country is--you!
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: will draw from it what he most needs. Not less than upon these he sees
its wholesome effect on the creative writer, its refreshing influence
on the critic. But most of all he dwells on its heroic qualities,
inseparable to him from what is religious in the "Odyssey"; and, says
Gogol, this book contains the idea that a human being, "wherever he
might be, whatever pursuit he might follow, is threatened by many
woes, that he must need wrestle with them--for that very purpose was
life given to him--that never for a single instant must he despair,
just as Odysseus did not despair, who in every hard and oppressive
moment turned to his own heart, unaware that with this inner scrutiny
of himself he had already said that hidden prayer uttered in a moment
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
