| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: after inn proffer you their cups of raw wine; river by river receive
your body in the sultry noon. Wherever you went warm valleys and
high trees and pleasant villages should compass you about; and light
fellowships should take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour
upon your way. You may see from afar off what it will come to in the
end - the weather-beaten red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of
the feet, cut off from all near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an
Ishmael, and an outcast. And yet it will seem well - and yet, in the
air of the forest, this will seem the best - to break all the network
bound about your feet by birth and old companionship and loyal love,
and bear your shovelful of phosphates to and fro, in town country,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden ..." I
decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be
stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might
be collected, and I concentrated my attention with
careful subtlety to this end.
Conversation Galante
I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon!
Or possibly (fantastic, I confess)
It may be Prester John's balloon
Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: in all possible circumstances," he used to say as he
struggled with the temptation to go away, and gave up his own soul
for others.
I remember reading in Gúsef's memoirs how my father
once, in conversation with Gusoryóf, the peasant, who had
made up his mind to leave his home for religious reasons, said, "My
life is a hundred thousand times more loathsome than yours, but yet
I cannot leave it."
I shall not enumerate all the letters of abuse and amazement
which my father received from all sides, upbraiding him with
luxury, with inconsistency, and even with torturing his peasants.
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