| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: I say just now despair? I was wrong. Birth-throes, and not death
pangs, those horrors were. Else they would have no place in my
discourse; no place, indeed, in my mind. Why talk over the signs
of disease, decay, death? Let the dead bury their dead, and let
us follow Him who dieth not; by whose command
The old order changeth, giving place to the new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways.
If we will believe this,--if we will look on each convulsion of
society, however terrible for the time being, as a token, not of
decrepitude, but of youth; not as the expiring convulsions of
sinking humanity, but as upward struggles, upward toward fuller
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: sciences, or endeavoring to regulate my actions according to the
principles it taught me, I never thought myself bound to publish anything
respecting it. For in what regards manners, every one is so full of his
own wisdom, that there might be found as many reformers as heads, if any
were allowed to take upon themselves the task of mending them, except
those whom God has constituted the supreme rulers of his people or to whom
he has given sufficient grace and zeal to be prophets; and although my
speculations greatly pleased myself, I believed that others had theirs,
which perhaps pleased them still more. But as soon as I had acquired some
general notions respecting physics, and beginning to make trial of them in
various particular difficulties, had observed how far they can carry us,
Reason Discourse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: Then the marquis refused with even greater severity of expression.
He talked morality. The aristocratic classes ought to set a good
example. Fauchery smiled and shook hands with Vandeuvres. He did
not wait for him and took his departure immediately, for he was due
at his newspaper office.
"At Nana's at midnight, eh?"
La Faloise retired too. Steiner had made his bow to the countess.
Other men followed them, and the same phrase went round--"At
midnight, at Nana's"--as they went to get their overcoats in the
anteroom. Georges, who could not leave without his mother, had
stationed himself at the door, where he gave the exact address.
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