| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: beef to-night with a serene sense of having stolen nothing more
than a few peas and beans as seed for his garden since the last
harvest supper, and felt warranted in thinking that Alick's
suspicious eye, for ever upon him, was an injury to his innocence.
But NOW the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn,
leaving a fair large deal table for the bright drinking-cans, and
the foaming brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks,
pleasant to behold. NOW, the great ceremony of the evening was to
begin--the harvest-song, in which every man must join. He might
be in tune, if he liked to be singular, but he must not sit with
closed lips. The movement was obliged to be in triple time; the
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: The soul flies far, and we can only call it
By things like these . . . a photograph, a letter,
Ribbon, or charm, or watch . . . '
. . . Wind flows softly, the long slow even wind,
Over the low roofs white with snow;
Wind blows, bearing cold clouds over the ocean,
One by one they melt and flow,--
Streaming one by one over trees and towers,
Coiling and gleaming in shafts of sun;
Wind flows, bearing clouds; the hurrying shadows
Flow under them one by one . . .
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Temperaments that would refuse the burdens and vexations and
distinctions of public office as there are that hunger after
them. The one set of Temperaments seek the contentment of the
spirit, and that alone; and this is exactly the case with the
other set. Neither set seeks anything BUT the contentment of the
spirit. If the one is sordid, both are sordid; and equally so,
since the end in view is precisely the same in both cases. And
in both cases Temperament decides the preference--and Temperament
is BORN, not made.
Conclusion
O.M. You have been taking a holiday?
What is Man? |
