| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: thought of living any longer; so, first flinging his crown and
sceptre into the sea (useless baubles that they were to him
now), King Aegeus merely stooped forward, and fell headlong
over the cliff, and was drowned, poor soul, in the waves that
foamed at its base!
This was melancholy news for Prince Theseus, who, when he
stepped ashore, found himself king of all the country, whether
he would or no; and such a turn of fortune was enough to make
any young man feel very much out of spirits. However, he sent
for his dear mother to Athens, and, by taking her advice in
matters of state, became a very excellent monarch, and was
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: ``Neither exaggerated self-love nor dogmatic reasoning is
rare in the human species. In all countries these two roots of
the Jacobin spirit subsist, secret and indestructible. . . . At
twenty years of age, when a young man is entering into the world,
his reason is stimulated simultaneously with his pride. In the
first place, whatever society he may move in, it is contemptible
to pure reason, for it has not been constructed by a philosophic
legislator according to a principle, but successive generations
have arranged it according to their multiple and ever-changing
needs. It is not the work of logic, but of history, and the
young reasoner shrugs his shoulders at the sight of this old
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: To stamp upon extravagance.
For thrift of bricks and greed of guilders,
He was the Buonaparte of Builders.
The foreman, a desponding creature,
Demurred to here and there a feature:
'For surely, sir - with your permeession -
Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion. . . . '
The builder goggled, gulped, and stared,
The foreman's services were spared.
Thin would not count among his minions
A man of Wesleyan opinions.
|
