| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: "Who knows?" I asked.
"I know," the Professor pronounced decidedly, "I am certain that this
gallery driven through beds of coal was never pierced by the hand of
man. But whether it be the hand of nature or not does not matter.
Supper time is come; let us sup."
Hans prepared some food. I scarcely ate, and I swallowed down the few
drops of water rationed out to me. One flask half full was all we had
left to slake the thirst of three men.
After their meal my two companions laid themselves down upon their
rugs, and found in sleep a solace for their fatigue. But I could not
sleep, and I counted every hour until morning.
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: mechanical vein. - I have something more to say about trees. I
have brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew
down in my woods (that were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half
round, fair girth; - nine feet, where I got my section, higher up.
This is a wedge, going to the centre, of the general shape of a
slice of apple-pie in a large and not opulent family. Length,
about eighteen inches. I have studied the growth of this tree by
its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and forty-two rings.
Started, therefore, about 1510. The thickness of the rings tells
the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate was
slow, - then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: by a number of courses, I should he happy in viewing a clean book,
after a thirteen weeks' daily examination.
This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison's Cato:
"Here will I hold. If there's a power above us
(And that there is all nature cries aloud
Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in must be happy."
Another from Cicero,
"O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix
expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis
tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus."
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
