| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: to make him some remuneration. I asked my guide whether
I might do so, but he told me certainly not; that the only
answer I should receive, probably would be, "We have meat
for the dogs in our country, and therefore do not grudge it
to a Christian." It must not be supposed that the rank of
lieutenant in such an army would at all prevent the acceptance
of payment: it was only the high sense of hospitality,
which every traveller is bound to acknowledge as nearly universal
throughout these provinces. After galloping some
leagues, we came to a low swampy country, which extends
for nearly eighty miles northward, as far as the Sierra
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: its moments of desperation on account of "nothing suiting" us. It
is in vain to get ourselves up as romantic, or classical, or
Christian, or Florentine, or barocco, or "national," in moribus
et artibus: it does not "clothe us"! But the "spirit," especially
the "historical spirit," profits even by this desperation: once
and again a new sample of the past or of the foreign is tested,
put on, taken off, packed up, and above all studied--we are the
first studious age in puncto of "costumes," I mean as concerns
morals, articles of belief, artistic tastes, and religions; we
are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the
grand style, for the most spiritual festival--laughter and
Beyond Good and Evil |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: only save you."
The girl looked at her aged mother. The lady was on her knees
entreating absolution of the Bishop, who did not heed her. In the
beautiful eyes the knight read a vague feeling of filial piety, and
spoke in a smothered voice.
"Submit yourself to the will of God. If it is His pleasure to take
your mother to Himself, it will doubtless be for her happiness--in
another world," he added, and his voice dropped still lower. "And for
ours in this," he thought within himself.
The Dame of Rupelmonde was lady of seven fiefs beside the barony of
Gavres.
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