| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of
some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have
reached a friendly pier -- there is the untold fate of La Prouse;
-- universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of all
great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants,
from Hanno and the Phoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of
stock to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is a
labor to task the faculties of a man -- such problems of profit and
loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it,
as demand a universal knowledge.
I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: from his hands as he whistled a modulation; and up by the
high spinney, whence they saw the mountains upon either hand;
and down the hill again to the back courts and offices of
Naseby House. Esther had kept ahead all the way, and Dick
plodded obediently in her wake; but as they neared the
stables, he pushed on and took the lead. He would have
preferred her to await him in the road while he went on and
brought the carriage back, but after so many repulses and
rebuffs he lacked courage to offer the suggestion. Perhaps,
too, he felt it wiser to keep his convoy within sight. So
they entered the yard in Indian file, like a tramp and his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: exploring the house nocturnally, or by tapping softly on the doors.
Discovery by that hot patriot, the mercer, suspicious as a Spaniard
must be, meant ruin infallibly. The captain therefore resolved to wait
patiently, resting his faith on time and the imperfection of men,
which always results--even with scoundrels, and how much more with
honest men!--in the neglect of precautions.
The next day he discovered a hammock in the kitchen, showing plainly
where the servant-woman slept. As for the apprentice, his bed was
evidently made on the shop counter. During supper on the second day
Montefiore succeeded, by cursing Napoleon, in smoothing the anxious
forehead of the merchant, a grave, black-visaged Spaniard, much like
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