| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: on the summit of the Acropolis.
"Hush!" cried Salammbo.
"What ails you, mistress? The blowing of the breeze, the passing of a
cloud, everything disquiets you just now!"
"I do not know," she said.
"You are wearied with too long prayers!"
"Oh! Tanaach, I would fain be dissolved in them like a flower in
wine!"
"Perhaps it is the smoke of your perfumes?"
"No!" said Salammbo; "the spirit of the gods dwells in fragrant
odours."
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to confound all opponents.
When he came to explain with me upon the doctrines, I found several
conundrums which I objected to, unless I might have my way a little too,
and introduce some of mine.
Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic
law it is said, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard."
He likewise kept the Seventh day, Sabbath; and these two points were
essentials with him. I dislik'd both; but agreed to admit them upon
condition of his adopting the doctrine of using no animal food.
"I doubt," said he, "my constitution will not bear that." I assur'd
him it would, and that he would be the better for it. He was usually a
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: (methinks this is not altogether a new type).
Item, a girl in a "dive," blessed with a Greek head and eyes,
that seem to speak all that is best and sweetest in the world.
But woe is me! She has no ideas in this world or the next beyond
the consumption of beer (a commission on each bottle), and
protests that she sings the songs allotted to her nightly without
more than the vaguest notion of their meaning.
Sweet and comely are the maidens of Devonshire; delicate and of
gracious seeming those who live in the pleasant places of London;
fascinating for all their demureness the damsels of France,
clinging closely to their mothers, with large eyes wondering at
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