| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: forgets them intentionally in order to leave some samples of Itself
among the living. He saw before him a withered face in which shone
fixed gray eyes of wearying immobility; a flattened nose, smeared with
snuff; knuckle-bones well set up by muscles that, under pretence of
being hands, played nonchalantly with a pack of cards, like some
machine the movement of which is about to run down. The body, a
species of broom-handle decently covered with clothes, enjoyed the
advantages of death and did not stir. Above the forehead rose a coif
of black velvet. Madame Fontaine, for it was really a woman, had a
black hen on her right hand and a huge toad, named Astaroth, on her
left. Gazonal did not at first perceive them.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: his head to tell me them--he that is not used to speak to any
one thus. Well, then, let us not lie under the wrath of God, but
be obedient unto Him."---Nay, indeed; but if a raven by its
croaking bears thee any sign, it is not the raven but God that
sends the sign through the raven; and if He signifies anything to
thee through human voice, will He not cause the man to say these
words to thee, that thou mayest know the power of the Divine--
how He sends a sign to some in one way and to others in another,
and on the greatest and highest matters of all signifies His will
through the noblest messenger?
What else does the poet mean:--
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: word literary. That word presupposes an intimacy of acquaintance
with letters, a turn of mind, and a manner of feeling to which I
dare lay no claim. I only love letters; but the love of letters
does not make a literary man, any more than the love of the sea
makes a seaman. And it is very possible, too, that I love the
letters in the same way a literary man may love the sea he looks
at from the shore--a scene of great endeavour and of great
achievements changing the face of the world, the great open way
to all sorts of undiscovered countries. No, perhaps I had better
say that the life at sea--and I don't mean a mere taste of it,
but a good broad span of years, something that really counts as
A Personal Record |
