| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: dainty food, and sat down while he gave his orders to his
servants. The Lapdog jumped into his master's lap, and lay there
blinking while the Farmer stroked his ears. The Ass, seeing this,
broke loose from his halter and commenced prancing about in
imitation of the Lapdog. The Farmer could not hold his sides with
laughter, so the Ass went up to him, and putting his feet upon the
Farmer's shoulder attempted to climb into his lap. The Farmer's
servants rushed up with sticks and pitchforks and soon taught the
Ass that
.Clumsy jesting is no joke.
The Lion and the Mouse
Aesop's Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: she disbelieved his reply, so sure she was of the true answer;
and when she came to ask wiser doctors, they confirmed her in her
belief, which much consoled her. . . .
"But how, you will repeat, CAN one have such certainty in respect
to what one does not see? This question, I am powerless to
answer. These are secrets of God's omnipotence which it does not
appertain to me to penetrate. All that I know is that I tell the
truth; and I shall never believe that any soul who does not
possess this certainty has ever been really united to God."[254]
[254] The Interior Castle, Fifth Abode, Ch. i., in Oeuvres,
translated by BOUIX, iii. 421-424.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: to generalize the character of a whole nation by the acts of individual
members of it. That is what everybody does, ourselves, the English, the
French, everybody. You can form no valid opinion of any nation's
characteristics, not even your own, until you have met hundreds of its
people, men and women, and had ample opportunity to observe and know them
beneath the surface. Here on the one hand we had our Secretary of the
Navy. He gave our Navy the whole credit for getting our soldiers
overseas.
He justified the British opinion that we are a nation of braggarts. On
the other hand, in London, we had Admiral Sims, another American, a
splendid antidote. He corrected the Secretary's brag. What is the moral?
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