| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: strongest,' to 'the survival of the fittest,' in this as in the other
realms of nature.
These are some of the reflections which the modern philosophy of language
suggests to us about the powers of the human mind and the forces and
influences by which the efforts of men to utter articulate sounds were
inspired. Yet in making these and similar generalizations we may note also
dangers to which we are exposed. (1) There is the confusion of ideas with
facts--of mere possibilities, and generalities, and modes of conception
with actual and definite knowledge. The words 'evolution,' 'birth,' 'law,'
development,' 'instinct,' 'implicit,' 'explicit,' and the like, have a
false clearness or comprehensiveness, which adds nothing to our knowledge.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand
why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles
Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and
heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till
death evinced by them against my father--of the sufferings of my
mother--of all the wrongs, in short, of our house--then did I
conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a
resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to
minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these
feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of
Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: flowers bloomed beside his door, and their fragrant breath brought
happy thoughts of pleasant valleys and green hills; birds sang to him,
and their sweet voices woke the music in his own soul, that never
failed to calm and comfort. Happy sounds were heard in his once
lonely home, and bright faces gathered round his knee, and listened
tenderly while he strove to tell them all the good that gentleness and
love had done for him.
Still the Elves watched near, and brighter grew the heart as kindly
thoughts and tender feelings entered in, and made it their home;
and when the old man fell asleep, above his grave little feet trod
lightly, and loving hands laid fragrant flowers.
Flower Fables |
