| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift
their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from
the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or
religious, the mind drives them away when they give it pain; but
when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the
faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or
banish them. For this reason the superstitious are often
melancholy, and the melancholy almost always superstitious.
"But do not let the suggestions of timidity overpower your better
reason; the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the
obligation, which, when you consider it with freedom, you find very
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: piles of early folios were wasting away on the ground.
Beneath an old ebony table were two long carved oak chests.
I lifted the lid of one, and at the top was a once-white
surplice covered with dust, and beneath was a mass of tracts--
Commonwealth quartos, unbound--a prey to worms and decay.
All was neglect. The outer door of this room, which was open,
was nearly on a level with the Quadrangle; some coats,
and trousers, and boots were upon the ebony table,
and a "gyp" was brushing away at them just within the door--
in wet weather he performed these functions entirely within
the library--as innocent of the incongruity of his position
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:
"It is as well to have made this step," said Roger Chillingworth
to himself, looking after the minister, with a grave smile.
"There is nothing lost. We shall be friends again anon. But
see, now, how passion
166 THE SCARLET LETTER
The Scarlet Letter |
