| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: little known. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed
whales; bunched whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are
the fishermen's names for a few sorts.
In connection with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is of
great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be
convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it
is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan,
founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth;
notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very obviously
seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular system of
Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions, which the
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism -
are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves
surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous
starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by
all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's
intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on
the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy
with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.
Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they
very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of
remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: Old One, why is it that men desire so greatly, and can do so little?'
'I do not know. Did you desire so much?' said Puck.
'I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast
should master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my
Mother, the Priestess, was afraid when I told her what I desired.
We were accustomed to be afraid of The Beast. When I was made
a man, and a maiden - she was a Priestess - waited for me at the
Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off the Chalk. Perhaps it was
a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to learn how to do us
new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. The
women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our
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