| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: suffer apprehension. I was past that. Just at the foot of the
stairs I stubbed my toe against Halsey's big chair, and had to
stand on one foot in a soundless agony until the pain subsided to
a dull ache. And then--I knew I was right. Some one had put a
key into the lock, and was turning it. For some reason it
refused to work, and the key was withdrawn. There was a
muttering of voices outside: I had only a second. Another trial,
and the door would open. The candle above made a faint
gleam down the well-like staircase, and at that moment, with a
second, no more, to spare, I thought of a plan.
The heavy oak chair almost filled the space between the newel
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: behind the screen, writing rapidly. His coat was off and the
stump of a cigar was between his teeth. At his elbow was the
rectangular block of his manuscript. During the last week the
story had run from him with a facility that had surprised and
delighted him; words came to him without effort, ranging
themselves into line with the promptitude of well-drilled
soldiery; sentences and paragraphs marched down the clean-swept
spaces of his paper, like companies and platoons defiling upon
review; his chapters were brigades that he marshaled at will,
falling them in one behind the other, each preceded by its
chapter-head, like an officer in the space between two divisions.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: thou bearest Him about within thee, canst thou still hanker after
mere fragments of stone and fine rock? When thou art about to bid
farewell to the Sun and Moon itself, wilt thou sit down and cry
like a child? Why, what didst thou hear, what didst thou learn?
why didst thou write thyself down a philosopher, when thou
mightest have written what was the fact, namely, "I have made one
or two Conpendiums, I have read some works of Chrysippus, and I
have not even touched the hem of Philosophy's robe"!
LXXI
Friend, lay hold with a desperate grasp, ere it is too late,
on Freedom, on Tranquility, on Greatness of soul! Lift up thy
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
