| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: which they knew, to that which they ought to have known? It is always
more hopeful, always, as I think, more philosophic, to throw the blame
of failure on man, on our own selves, rather than on God, and the
perfect law of His universe. At least let us be sure for ourselves,
that such an old age as befell this Greek society, as befalls many a man
nowadays, need not be our lot. Let us be sure that earth shows no
fairer sight than the old man, whose worn-out brain and nerves make it
painful, and perhaps impossible, to produce fresh thought himself: but
who can yet welcome smilingly and joyfully the fresh thoughts of others;
who keeps unwearied his faith in God's government of the universe, in
God's continual education of the human race; who draws around him the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the
task was beyond her skill. after testing both smiles and frowns,
and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any
calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand
aside and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses.
Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while
it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed
to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might not be within
its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment.
Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a
certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour
The Scarlet Letter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: tendency to mere abstractions; not perceiving that pure abstraction is only
negation, they thought that the greater the abstraction the greater the
truth. Behind any pair of ideas a new idea which comprehended them--the
(Greek), as it was technically termed--began at once to appear. Two are
truer than three, one than two. The words 'being,' or 'unity,' or
essence,' or 'good,' became sacred to them. They did not see that they had
a word only, and in one sense the most unmeaning of words. They did not
understand that the content of notions is in inverse proportion to their
universality--the element which is the most widely diffused is also the
thinnest; or, in the language of the common logic, the greater the
extension the less the comprehension. But this vacant idea of a whole
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