| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: It is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.'
And when they nearer came a third one cried,
'It is young Dionysos who has hid
His spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise indeed were we away to fly:
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.'
So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Socrates, keep their reason pure, not under the dominion of passion, nor
mixing itself greatly with the body, and therefore quick and sensitive
in responding to that which encountered it.
You see from these two extracts what questions were arising in the minds
of men, and how they touched on ethical and theological questions. I
say arising in their minds: I believe that I ought to say rather,
stirred up in their minds by One greater than they. At all events,
there they appeared, utterly independent of any Christian teaching. The
belief in this Logos or Daemon speaking to the Reason of man, was one
which neither Plutarch nor Marcus, neither Numenius nor Ammonius, as far
as we can see, learnt from the Christians; it was the common ground
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: shockingly. Instead of the crowd of importunate courtiers there
were just half a dozen uninviting men, journalists waiting for
an interview. Ropper the big commissionaire was still there, but
now indeed he was defending my uncle from something more than
time-wasting intrusions. I found the little man alone in the
inner office pretending to work, but really brooding. He was
looking yellow and deflated.
"Lord!" he said at the sight of me. "You're lean, George. It
makes that scar of yours show up."
We regarded each other gravely for a time.
"Quap," I said, "is at the bottom of the Atlantic. There's some
|
