| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: that of winning her at once. Boldwood felt his love
to be so deep and strong and eternal, that it was pos-
sible she had never yet known its full volume, and this
patience in delay would afford him an opportunity of
giving sweet proof on the point. He would annihilate
the six years of his life as if they were minutes -- so little
did he value his time on earth beside her love. He
would let her see, all those six years of intangible ether-
eal courtship, how little care he had for anything but as
it bore upon the consummation.
Meanwhile the early and the late summer brought
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: best liked working acts in the Curio, as the
dime-museum profession was called.
Of all the acts of this nature that I have
ever seen I think the most foolhardy was that
of an under-sized Italian who lay on his back
on the floor and let fall from his hands,
extended upward at arm's length heavy weights
upon his chest--the silly fool! I said as
much to him--and some other things too.
His act had little entertainment to show
as compared with the pain and danger
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence."
They who have been traveling long on the steppes of Tartary say,
"On re-entering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and
turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air
seemed to fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of
asphyxia." When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest woods
the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most
dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,-- a sanctum
sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature. The
wildwood covers the virgin mould,--and the same soil is good for
men and for trees. A man's health requires as many acres of
Walking |
