| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: continued, presently, "that I perceive the causes of the harmonies
which surround us. This landscape, which has but three marked colors,
--the brilliant yellow of the sands, the blue of the sky, the even
green of the sea,--is grand without being savage; it is immense, yet
not a desert; it is monotonous, but it does not weary; it has only
three elements, and yet it is varied."
"Women alone know how to render such impressions," I said. "You would
be the despair of a poet, dear soul that I divine so well!"
"The extreme heat of mid-day casts into those three expressions of the
infinite an all-powerful color," said Pauline, smiling. "I can here
conceive the poesy and the passion of the East."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: trouble is that the ship is still lying motionless, not
under command; and that I have nothing to do to
keep my imagination from running wild amongst
the disastrous images of the worst that may befall
us. What's going to happen? Probably nothing.
Or anything. It may be a furious squall coming,
butt end foremost. And on deck there are five
men with the vitality and the strength, of say, two.
We may have all our sails blown away. Every
stitch of canvas has been on her since we broke
ground at the mouth of the Mei-nam, fifteen days
The Shadow Line |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: there is nothing of that spirit. When a thing is sacred to me it
is impossible for me to be irreverent toward it. I cannot call
to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent,
except towards the things which were sacred to other people. Am
I in the right? I think so. But I ask no one to take my
unsupported word; no, look at the dictionary; let the dictionary
decide. Here is the definition:
IRREVERENCE. The quality or condition of irreverence toward
God and sacred things.
What does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says
irreverence is lack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and
What is Man? |
