| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: ours, as well in the external shape of the members as in the internal
conformation of the organs, of the same matter with that I had described,
and at first placed in it no rational soul, nor any other principle, in
room of the vegetative or sensitive soul, beyond kindling in the heart one
of those fires without light, such as I had already described, and which I
thought was not different from the heat in hay that has been heaped
together before it is dry, or that which causes fermentation in new wines
before they are run clear of the fruit. For, when I examined the kind of
functions which might, as consequences of this supposition, exist in this
body, I found precisely all those which may exist in us independently of
all power of thinking, and consequently without being in any measure owing
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: But Daisy went on to say that she wished Winterbourne would travel
with them and "go round" with them; they might know something,
in that case. "Don't you want to come and teach Randolph?" she asked.
Winterbourne said that nothing could possibly please him so much,
but that he unfortunately other occupations. "Other occupations?
I don't believe it!" said Miss Daisy. "What do you mean?
You are not in business." The young man admitted that he was not
in business; but he had engagements which, even within a day or two,
would force him to go back to Geneva. "Oh, bother!" she said;
"I don't believe it!" and she began to talk about something else.
But a few moments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: that another vessel of some sort had tried for shel-
ter in the bay on that awful, blind night, had
rammed the German ship amidships (a breach--
as one of the divers told me afterwards--'that you
could sail a Thames barge through'), and then
had gone out either scathless or damaged, who shall
say; but had gone out, unknown, unseen, and fatal,
to perish mysteriously at sea. Of her nothing ever
came to light, and yet the hue and cry that was
raised all over the world would have found her out
if she had been in existence anywhere on the face
Amy Foster |
