| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: wind-beaten coast, her long curled hair would be shaken out and
hanging loose, as though it had broken away from its bearings. It
was seldom that this gave her any concern; though sometimes she
looked as though she had been dining sans ceremonie; her locks
having become disheveled by the breezes.
"She would then go up to her room in order to adjust what I
called her glass lamps. When I would say to her, in familiar
gallantry, which, however, always offended her:
" 'You are as beautiful as a planet to-day, Miss Harriet,' a
little blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood
of a young maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: first. There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs--
which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and
manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at
the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are.
CRITO: I have often told you, Socrates, that I am in a constant difficulty
about my two sons. What am I to do with them? There is no hurry about the
younger one, who is only a child; but the other, Critobulus, is getting on,
and needs some one who will improve him. I cannot help thinking, when I
hear you talk, that there is a sort of madness in many of our anxieties
about our children:--in the first place, about marrying a wife of good
family to be the mother of them, and then about heaping up money for them--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: of opening his fingers and letting the whole lot fall overboard.
I believe he was tempted to do so. I shall never forget that man
afraid of his letters.
"Have you been long out from Europe?" he asked me.
"Not very. Not quite eight months," I told him. "I left a ship
in Samarang with a hurt back and have been in the hospital in
Singapore some weeks."
He sighed.
"Trade is very bad here."
"Indeed!"
"Hopeless!. . .See these geese?"
Some Reminiscences |
