| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: publishing them, do much the same as if I were to throw open the windows,
and allow the light of day to enter the cave into which the combatants had
descended. But even superior men have no reason for any great anxiety to
know these principles, for if what they desire is to be able to speak of
all things, and to acquire a reputation for learning, they will gain their
end more easily by remaining satisfied with the appearance of truth, which
can be found without much difficulty in all sorts of matters, than by
seeking the truth itself which unfolds itself but slowly and that only in
some departments, while it obliges us, when we have to speak of others,
freely to confess our ignorance. If, however, they prefer the knowledge of
some few truths to the vanity of appearing ignorant of none, as such
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from
the chart which my yesterday's walk left pictured in my mind. I
had remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven
yards, a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length
of the barren: these were erected and daubed with lime on purpose
to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a fall, like the
present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with the firmer
path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there, all
traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it
necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when
I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.
Wuthering Heights |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: " 'My word, we must be quick about it, or I shall have some one buying
over my head.'
" 'Bring your certificate of birth round to-morrow morning, and we
will talk. I will think it over.'
" 'Next morning, at eight o'clock, I stood in the old man's room. He
took the document, put on his spectacles, coughed, spat, wrapped
himself up in his black greatcoat, and read the whole certificate
through from beginning to end. Then he turned it over and over, looked
at me, coughed again, fidgeted about in his chair, and said, 'We will
try to arrange this bit of business.'
"I trembled.
Gobseck |
