| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: It was a great treat to us to be turned out into the home paddock
or the old orchard; the grass was so cool and soft to our feet,
the air so sweet, and the freedom to do as we liked was so pleasant --
to gallop, to lie down, and roll over on our backs,
or to nibble the sweet grass. Then it was a very good time for talking,
as we stood together under the shade of the large chestnut tree.
07 Ginger
One day when Ginger and I were standing alone in the shade,
we had a great deal of talk; she wanted to know all about my bringing up
and breaking in, and I told her.
"Well," said she, "if I had had your bringing up I might have had
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: thinking, mind, how often I have lain upon the grass and watched
them. I say what is it that they plot and hatch? Do you know?'
'They are only clothes,' returned the guest, 'such as we wear;
hanging on those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind.'
'Clothes!' echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling
quickly back. 'Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as
wise as you! You don't see shadowy people there, like those that
live in sleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass,
nor swift ghosts when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the
air, nor see men stalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier
life than you, with all your cleverness. You're the dull men.
Barnaby Rudge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a
glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform. 'A
rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point.' It may be
observed however that Plato never intended to answer the question of
casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to
do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show his master
maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not
'the world,' but the 'one wise man,' is still the paradox of Socrates in
his last hours. He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may
be fatal to him. The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither
good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral
|
