| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: other name but Martin, he would have been damn'd to all eternity--Not that
I look upon Martin, he would add, as a good name--far from it--'tis
something better than a neutral, and but a little--yet little as it is you
see it was of some service to him.
My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the
best logician could shew him--yet so strange is the weakness of man at the
same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of
it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there are many
stories in Hafen Slawkenbergius's Decades full as entertaining as this I am
translating, yet there is not one amongst them which my father read over
with half the delight--it flattered two of his strangest hypotheses
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gently hear the voice
Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time.
The Lilly of the valley breathing in the humble grass
Answerd the lovely maid and said: I am a watry weed,
And I am very small and love to dwell in lowly vales:
So weak the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head
Yet I am visited from heaven and he that smiles on all
Walks in the valley, and each morn over me spreads his hand
Saying, rejoice thou humble grass, thou new-born lily flower.
Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks:
For thou shall be clothed in light, and fed with morning manna:
Poems of William Blake |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: vision I became aware once more of the white wall, the green door
before us down the road.
"We passed it talking. I passed it. I can still see the
shadow of Gurker's marked profile, his opera hat tilted forward
over his prominent nose, the many folds of his neck wrap going
before my shadow and Ralphs' as we sauntered past.
"I passed within twenty inches of the door. 'If I say
good-night to them, and go in,' I asked myself, 'what will happen?'
And I was all a-tingle for that word with Gurker.
"I could not answer that question in the tangle of my other
problems. 'They will think me mad,' I thought. 'And suppose I
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