| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: Apollo's lute'; or that evil passions fled at his approach, and men
whose dull unimaginative lives had been but a mode of death rose as
it were from the grave when he called them; or that when he taught
on the hillside the multitude forgot their hunger and thirst and
the cares of this world, and that to his friends who listened to
him as he sat at meat the coarse food seemed delicate, and the
water had the taste of good wine, and the whole house became full
of the odour and sweetness of nard.
Renan in his VIE DE JESUS - that gracious fifth gospel, the gospel
according to St. Thomas, one might call it - says somewhere that
Christ's great achievement was that he made himself as much loved
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: life. For one captain, sailing out of New Bedford, carried him to
Nuka-hiva and marooned him there among the cannibals. The motive
for this act was inconceivably small; poor Tari's wages, which were
thus economised, would scarce have shook the credit of the New
Bedford owners. And the act itself was simply murder. Tari's life
must have hung in the beginning by a hair. In the grief and terror
of that time, it is not unlikely he went mad, an infirmity to which
he was still liable; or perhaps a child may have taken a fancy to
him and ordained him to be spared. He escaped at least alive,
married in the island, and when I knew him was a widower with a
married son and a granddaughter. But the thought of Oahu haunted
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: wife for you from the first ranks of the rich nobility. I
wish you to be distinguished by the splendor which glory and
fortune confer, for nobility of descent you have already."
"Monsieur," exclaimed Raoul, carried away by a first
impulse, "I was reproached the other day for not knowing who
my mother was."
Athos turned pale; then, knitting his brows like the
greatest of all the heathen deities: -- "I am waiting to
learn the reply you made," he demanded, in an imperious
manner.
"Forgive me! oh, forgive me," murmured the young man,
Ten Years Later |
