| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: poppies. Innocent are they, even in their wickedness.
But to the sheep I am no longer a scholar: so willeth my lot--blessings
upon it!
For this is the truth: I have departed from the house of the scholars, and
the door have I also slammed behind me.
Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table: not like them have I got
the knack of investigating, as the knack of nut-cracking.
Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil; rather would I sleep on ox-
skins than on their honours and dignities.
I am too hot and scorched with mine own thought: often is it ready to take
away my breath. Then have I to go into the open air, and away from all
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: little structure of lath and mud served as a kennel for a big dog, the
indispensable guardian of so lonely a dwelling. Beyond this kennel was
a little plot, where the hens cackled whose eggs were sold to the
Canons. Here and there on this patch of earth, muddy or dry according
to the whimsical Parisian weather, a few trees grew, constantly lashed
by the wind, and teased and broken by the passer-by--willows, reeds,
and tall grasses.
The Eyot, the Seine, the landing-place, the house, were all
overshadowed on the west by the huge basilica of Notre-Dame casting
its cold gloom over the whole plot as the sun moved. Then, as now,
there was not in all Paris a more deserted spot, a more solemn or more
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: supplied him with valuable materials. He had not forgotten that
Apollonius of Tyana had, in Asia, announced the death of a tyrant with
every detail of his execution, at the very hour when it was taking
place in Rome; nor that Plotinus, when far away from Porphyrius, was
aware of his friend's intention to kill himself, and flew to dissuade
him; nor the incident in the last century, proved in the face of the
most incredulous mockery ever known--an incident most surprising to
men who were accustomed to regard doubt as a weapon against the fact
alone, but simple enough to believers--the fact that Alphonzo-Maria di
Liguori, Bishop of Saint-Agatha, administered consolations to Pope
Ganganelli, who saw him, heard him, and answered him, while the Bishop
Louis Lambert |
