| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and
coin as much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She
puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where: you
may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any.
And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a
good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an
Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order,
and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and
my breath good, and my temper?" And, keeping the figure a little
longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful
one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: a coward, a craven poltroon; but, God, how I love you."
"But," said the girl, "I do love--"
"Stop," he cried, "not yet, not yet. Do not say it till
I come again. You know nothing of me, you do not
know even who I be; but when next I come I promise
that ye shall know as much of me as I myself know,
and then, Bertrade, my Bertrade, if you can then say,
'I love you' no power on earth, or in heaven above, or
hell below shall keep you from being mine!"
"I will wait, Roger, for I believe in you and trust
you. I do not understand, but I know that you must
The Outlaw of Torn |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: a chair near the fireplace. "All is settled."
He felt it impossible to endure the overthrow of their mutual hopes.
"Yes, all can be settled," said Mathias, hastily interposing.
Like a general who, in a moment, upsets the plans skilfully laid and
prepared by the enemy, the old notary, enlightened by that genius
which presides over notaries, saw an idea, capable of saving the
future of Paul and his children, unfolding itself in legal form before
his eyes.
Maitre Solonet, who perceived no other way out of these irreconcilable
difficulties than the resolution with which Paul's love inspired him,
and to which this conflict of feelings and thwarted interests had
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