| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: morning, more or less drunk, but faithful to their job. One or two
did not return.
Among the revellers was the cook, Charlie, commonly called The
Doctor. The rivermen early worked off the effects of their rather
wild spree, and turned up at noon chipper as larks. Not so the
cook. He moped about disconsolately all day; and in the evening,
after his work had been finished, he looked so much like a chicken
with the pip that Orde's attention was attracted.
"Got that dark-brown taste, Charlie?" he inquired with mock
solicitude.
The cook mournfully shook his head.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: called by no name at present, but which I will call 'extra-height'.
But we can no more take cognizance of our 'height' than you can
of your 'extra-height'. Even I -- who have been in Spaceland,
and have had the privilege of understanding for twenty-four hours
the meaning of 'height' -- even I cannot now comprehend it,
nor realize it by the sense of sight or by any process of reason;
I can but apprehend it by faith.
"The reason is obvious. Dimension implies direction,
implies measurement, implies the more and the less. Now,
all our lines are EQUALLY and INFINITESIMALLY thick (or high,
whichever you like); consequently, there is nothing in them
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: yellow skin so close to the bones that it described a multitude of
wrinkles everywhere, either circular like the ripples in the water
caused by a stone which a child throws in, or star-shaped like a pane
of glass cracked by a blow; but everywhere very deep, and as close
together as the leaves of a closed book. We often see more hideous old
men; but what contributed more than aught else to give to the spectre
that rose before us the aspect of an artificial creation was the red
and white paint with which he glistened. The eyebrows shone in the
light with a lustre which disclosed a very well executed bit of
painting. Luckily for the eye, saddened by such a mass of ruins, his
corpse-like skull was concealed beneath a light wig, with innumerable
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