| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: "Here are bits of the ladders, and some of them half burnt!"
"Burnt?" repeated Sir William. "Indeed, here sure enough are cinders
which have evidently been cold a long time!"
"Do you think, sir," asked Ryan, "that Mr. Starr could have had any
reason for burning the ladders, and thus breaking of communication
with the world?"
"Certainly not," answered Sir William Elphiston, who
had become very thoughtful. "Come, my lad, lead us to the cottage.
There we shall ascertain the truth."
Jack Ryan shook his head, as if not at all convinced.
Then, taking a lamp from the hands of one of the men, he proceeded
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: a little maiden lay singing within. Then how amazed were they,
and how they welcomed her, as she lay warm beneath the mother's wing,
and how the young birds did love her.
Great joy was in the forest, and proud were the parents of their
family, and still more of the little one who had come to them;
while all the neighbors flocked in, to see Dame Brown-Breast's
little child. And the tiny maiden talked to them, and sang so
merrily, that they could have listened for ever. Soon she was
the joy of the whole forest, dancing from tree to tree, making
every nest her home, and none were ever so welcome as little Bud;
and so they lived right merrily in the green old forest.
Flower Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred persons,
'winged and holy things' who have a touch of madness in their composition
(Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of respect (Republic), but
not allowed to live in a well-ordered state. Like the Statesmen in the
Meno, they have a divine instinct, but they are narrow and confused; they
do not attain to the clearness of ideas, or to the knowledge of poetry or
of any other art as a whole.
In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by Protagoras himself as
the original sophists; and this family resemblance may be traced in the
Ion. The rhapsode belongs to the realm of imitation and of opinion: he
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