| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their
performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce
ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the
whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it
was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and
sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused
revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a
light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked
at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly,
and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming
of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: bond by the Pope--but heirs also of Roman civilisation, Roman
literature, Roman Law; and therefore, in due time, of Greek
philosophy and art. No less a question than this, it seems to me,
hung in the balance during that fortnight of autumn, 1066.
Poor old Edward the Confessor, holy, weak, and sad, lay in his new
choir of Westminster--where the wicked ceased from troubling, and
the weary were at rest. The crowned ascetic had left no heir
behind. England seemed as a corpse, to which all the eagles might
gather together; and the South-English, in their utter need, had
chosen for their king the ablest, and it may be the justest, man in
Britain--Earl Harold Godwinsson: himself, like half the upper
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: admiration of the more simple; that jurisprudence, medicine, and the other
sciences, secure for their cultivators honors and riches; and, in fine,
that it is useful to bestow some attention upon all, even upon those
abounding the most in superstition and error, that we may be in a position
to determine their real value, and guard against being deceived.
But I believed that I had already given sufficient time to languages, and
likewise to the reading of the writings of the ancients, to their
histories and fables. For to hold converse with those of other ages and
to travel, are almost the same thing. It is useful to know something of
the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more
correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that
Reason Discourse |
