| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: "His honour kens," said Caleb, who, however hopeless of himself
of accomplishing what was desirable, would, like the high-
spirited elephant, rather have died in the effort than brooked
the aid of a brother in commission--"his honour kens weel I need
nae counsellor, when the honour of the house is
concerned."
"I should be unjust if I denied it, Caleb," said his master;
"but your art lies chiefly in making apologies, upon which we can
no more dine than upon the bill of fare of our thunder-blasted
dinner. Now, possibly Mr. Lockhard's talent may consist in
finding some substitute for that which certainly is not, and has
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: there's just room enough for your hoofs. Then you stand still and
keep quiet--never ask a man to hold your head, young un--keep
quiet while the guns are being put together, and then you watch
the little poppy shells drop down into the tree-tops ever so far
below."
"Don't you ever trip?" said the troop-horse.
"They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen's ear,"
said Billy. "Now and again perhaps a badly packed saddle will
upset a mule, but it's very seldom. I wish I could show you our
business. It's beautiful. Why, it took me three years to find
out what the men were driving at. The science of the thing is
The Jungle Book |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: can he have learnt things from names before there were any names? 'I
believe, Socrates, that some power more than human first gave things their
names, and that these were necessarily true names.' Then how came the
giver of names to contradict himself, and to make some names expressive of
rest, and others of motion? 'I do not suppose that he did make them both.'
Then which did he make--those which are expressive of rest, or those which
are expressive of motion?...But if some names are true and others false, we
can only decide between them, not by counting words, but by appealing to
things. And, if so, we must allow that things may be known without names;
for names, as we have several times admitted, are the images of things; and
the higher knowledge is of things, and is not to be derived from names; and
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