| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: himself, and with tears in his eyes declared that he would not
consent to a break-up of the family during his lifetime, that
his house was prospering, thank God, but that if they separated
they would all have to go begging.
'Just like the Matveevs,' said the neighbour. 'They used to
have a proper house, but now they've split up none of them has
anything.'
'And that is what you want to happen to us,' said the old man,
turning to his son.
The son made no reply and there was an awkward pause. The
silence was broken by Petrushka, who having harnessed the horse
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: v. 101. My predecessor.] Celestine V. See Notes to Canto III.
CANTO XXVIII.
v.8. In that long war.] The war of Hannibal in Italy. "When
Mago brought news of his victories to Carthage, in order to make
his successes more easily credited, he commanded the golden rings
to be poured out in the senate house, which made so large a heap,
that, as some relate, they filled three modii and a half. A more
probable account represents them not to have exceeded one
modius." Livy, Hist.
v. 12. Guiscard's Norman steel.] Robert Guiscard, who conquered
the kingdom of Naples, and died in 1110. G. Villani, l. iv. c.
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: always he who killed.
It would be late, often dark, when we got back home.
"ANNA KARÉNINA"
I REMEMBER my father writing his alphabet and reading-book in
1871 and 1872, but I cannot at all remember his beginning "Anna
Karénina." I probably knew nothing about it at the time.
What did it matter to a boy of seven what his father was writing?
It was only later, when one kept hearing the name again and
again, and bundles of proofs kept arriving, and were sent off
almost every day, that I understood that "Anna Karénina"
was the name of the novel on which my father and mother were both
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