| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: through the fields, to be alone together at times if we wished it, to
look over an old water-mill, to sit beneath a tree in some lovely glen
among the hills, the lovers' talks, the sweet confidences drawn forth
by which each made some progress day by day in the other's heart. Ah!
sir, the out-of-door life, the beauty of earth and heaven, is a
perfect accompaniment to the perfect happiness of the soul! To mingle
our careless talk with the song of the birds among the dewy leaves, to
smile at each other as we gazed on the sky, to turn our steps slowly
homewards at the sound of the bell that always rings too soon, to
admire together some little detail in the landscape, to watch the
fitful movements of an insect, to look closely at a gleaming
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: formidably, after all his practice on those nightmares
they call his "celebrated Hampton Court cartoons."
Raphael was a bird. We had several of his chromos;
one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where
he puts in a miracle of his own -- puts three men into
a canoe which wouldn't have held a dog without up-
setting. I always admired to study R.'s art, it was so
fresh and unconventional.
There wasn't even a bell or a speaking-tube in the
castle. I had a great many servants, and those that
were on duty lolled in the anteroom; and when I
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: "My chief sin is doubt. I have doubts of everything, and for the
most part I am in doubt."
"Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind," the priest
repeated the same words. "What do you doubt about principally?"
"I doubt of everything. I sometimes even have doubts of the
existence of God," Levin could not help saying, and he was
horrified at the impropriety of what he was saying. But Levin's
words did not, it seemed, make much impression on the priest.
"What sort of doubt can there be of the existence of God?" he
said hurriedly, with a just perceptible smile.
Levin did not speak.
Anna Karenina |
