| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: electricity, and these may produce electric wonders. But the
wonders differ from Normal Science in this,--they are alike
objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no
grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true
sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw
or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I
believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced,
for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that
they experienced exactly the same thing. Well, observe, no two
persons ever experience exactly the same dream. If this were an
ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could say much. But I
remember I once carried a small bottle from Sir George Hastings to Sir
Henry Wotton, they were both chemical men, as a great present: it was
sent, and receiv'd, and us'd, with great confidence; and yet, upon
inquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir Henry; which,
with the help of this and other circumstances, makes me have little
belief in such things as many men talk of. Not but that I think that
fishes both smell and hear, as I have express in my former discourse:
but there is a mysterious knack, which though it be much easier than
the philosopher's stone, yet is not attainable by common capacities, or
else lies locked up in the brain or breast of some chemical man, that,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: yellower, and the air is full of filmy insects out for their last
dance, the voice of the little river becomes louder and more
distinct. The true poets have often noticed this apparent increase
in the sound of flowing waters at nightfall. Gray, in one of his
letters, speaks of "hearing the murmur of many waters not audible
in the daytime." Wordsworth repeats the same thought almost in the
same words:
"A soft and lulling sound is heard
Of streams inaudible by day."
And Tennyson, in the valley of Cauteretz, tells of the river
"Deepening his voice with deepening of the night."
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