| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: toil and varied hardship that it has cost to hew and drag his walls
and floors and pretty peaked roofs out of the backwoods. It might
enlarge his home, and make his musings by the winter fireside less
commonplace, to give a kindly thought now and then to the long
chain of human workers through whose hands the timber of his house
has passed, since it first felt the stroke of the axe in the snow-
bound winter woods, and floated, through the spring and summer, on
far-off lakes and little rivers, au large.
1894.
TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN
"Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: Chevet would only take them of him at a loss of thirty per cent.
Gobseck haggled for a few francs between the prices, and while they
wrangled the goods became unsalable. Again, Gobseck had refused free
delivery of his silver-plate, and declined to guarantee the weights of
his coffees. There had been a dispute over each article, the first
indication in Gobseck of the childishness and incomprehensible
obstinacy of age, a condition of mind reached at last by all men in
whom a strong passion survives the intellect.
"I said to myself, as he had said, 'To whom will all these riches go?'
. . . And then I think of the grotesque information he gave me as to
the present address of his heiress, I foresee that it will be my duty
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: Ay! there are times when the great universe,
Like cloth in some unskilful dyer's vat,
Shrivels into a handbreadth, and perchance
That time is now! Well! let that time be now.
Let this mean room be as that mighty stage
Whereon kings die, and our ignoble lives
Become the stakes God plays for.
I do not know
Why I speak thus. My ride has wearied me.
And my horse stumbled thrice, which is an omen
That bodes not good to any.
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