| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: My brother is one of the best of Squares, just, sensible,
cheerful, and not without fraternal affection; yet I confess
that my weekly interviews, at least in one respect, cause me
the bitterest pain. He was present when the Sphere manifested himself
in the Council Chamber; he saw the Sphere's changing sections;
he heard the explanation of the phenomena then given to the Circles.
Since that time, scarcely a week has passed during seven whole years,
without his hearing from me a repetition of the part I played
in that manifestation, together with ample descriptions
of all the phenomena in Spaceland, and the arguments for the existence
of Solid things derivable from Analogy. Yet -- I take shame
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: There I remained eight years without seeing my family; living the life
of a pariah,--partly for the following reason. I received but three
francs a month pocket-money, a sum barely sufficient to buy the pens,
ink, paper, knives, and rules which we were forced to supply
ourselves. Unable to buy stilts or skipping-ropes, or any of the
things that were used in the playground, I was driven out of the
games; to gain admission on suffrage I should have had to toady the
rich and flatter the strong of my division. My heart rose against
either of these meannesses, which, however, most children readily
employ. I lived under a tree, lost in dejected thought, or reading the
books distributed to us monthly by the librarian. How many griefs were
The Lily of the Valley |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: evening. To such observance of it I was born and bred. As the
large, round disk of day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a
somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was time for work to
cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life
passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun
should sink again beneath the horizon.
It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul
within that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to
make itself most distinctly heard, - so that I well remember I used
to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled
with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, WAS PECULIAR
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
