| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: which Malice will not blacken, and which Ignorance cannot misrepresent.
Chapter 3.LXXXII.
As Susannah was informed by an express from Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle
Toby's falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it happened,--
the contents of which express, Susannah communicated to my mother the next
day,--it has just given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby's
amours a fortnight before their existence.
I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. Shandy, quoth my mother, which
will surprise you greatly.--
Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was
musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: Resolution, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors
to obtain all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry freeing
me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence,
would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc.
Conceiving then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras
in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary,
I contrived the following method for conducting that examination.
I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues.
I rul'd each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns,
one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter
for the day. I cross'd these columns with thirteen red lines,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: very road, where two wagons could not pass,
a courier drives some ten times a year without
climbing down from his rickety vehicle. One
of our drivers was a Russian peasant from Yaro-
slavl, the other, an Ossete. The latter took out
the leaders in good time and led the shaft-horse
by the reins, using every possible precaution --
but our heedless compatriot did not even climb
down from his box! When I remarked to him
that he might put himself out a bit, at least in
the interests of my portmanteau, for which I
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