| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: within them, more variety was to be gained by joining this company than
by waiting outside alone until they should return from their devotions.
So he seated himself in a corner near the entrance, and after a brief,
jaunty glance at the sunburned, shaggy congregation, made himself as
comfortable as might be. He had not seen a face worth keeping his eyes
open for. The simple choir and simple fold, gathered for even-song, paid
him no attention--a rough American bound for the mines was but an object
of aversion to them.
The Padre, of course, had been instantly aware of the stranger's
presence. To be aware of unaccustomed presences is the sixth sense with
vicars of every creed and heresy; and if the parish is lonely and the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: will have become so habitual, in association with the belief that others
are thinking of us, that even a suspicion of their depreciation suffices
to relax the capillaries, without any conscious thought about our faces.
With some sensitive persons it is enough even to notice their dress
to produce the same effect. Through the force, also, of association
and inheritance our capillaries are relaxed, whenever we know,
or imagine, that any one is blaming, though in silence, our actions,
thoughts, or character; and, again, when we are highly praised.
[46] See, also, Mr. Michael Foster, on the action of the vaso-motor system,
in his interesting Lecture before the royal Institution, as translated
in the `Revue des Cours Scientifiques,' Sept. 25, 1869, p. 683.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: the shore, he could foresee tempests, surges, squalls, the height of
tides, or calms. When night had spread its veil upon the sky, he still
could see the sea in its twilight mystery, and talk with it. At all
times he shared its fecund life, feeling in his soul the tempest when
it was angry; breathing its rage in its hissing breath; running with
its waves as they broke in a thousand liquid fringes upon the rocks.
He felt himself intrepid, free, and terrible as the sea itself; like
it, he bounded and fell back; he kept its solemn silence; he copied
its sudden pause. In short, he had wedded the sea; it was now his
confidant, his friend. In the morning when he crossed the glowing
sands of the beach and came upon his rocks, he divined the temper of
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