| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: of readily determining what should be thought of all the rest. And that
there may be less difficulty in understanding what I am about to say on
this subject, I advise those who are not versed in anatomy, before they
commence the perusal of these observations, to take the trouble of getting
dissected in their presence the heart of some large animal possessed of
lungs (for this is throughout sufficiently like the human), and to have
shown to them its two ventricles or cavities: in the first place, that in
the right side, with which correspond two very ample tubes, viz., the
hollow vein (vena cava), which is the principal receptacle of the blood,
and the trunk of the tree, as it were, of which all the other veins in the
body are branches; and the arterial vein (vena arteriosa), inappropriately
 Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: cashier, and he stopped a moment to make sure of the signature.
Then he came near to fainting.
"Fan me, Mary, fan me! They are the same as gold!"
"Oh, how lovely, Edward! Why?"
"Signed by Harkness. What can the mystery of that be, Mary?"
"Edward, do you think--"
"Look here--look at this! Fifteen--fifteen--fifteen--thirty-four.
Thirty-eight thousand five hundred! Mary, the sack isn't worth
twelve dollars, and Harkness--apparently--has paid about par for
it."
"And does it all come to us, do you think--instead of the ten
 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn."
My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac.
"Perhaps you can write to me."
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This is as I had reckoned.
"I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends."
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
 Prufrock/Other Observations |