| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so,
it may be worth while going to prison.
There is something so unique about Christ. Of course just as there
are false dawns before the dawn itself, and winter days so full of
sudden sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into
squandering its gold before its time, and make some foolish bird
call to its mate to build on barren boughs, so there were
Christians before Christ. For that we should be grateful. The
unfortunate thing is that there have been none since. I make one
exception, St. Francis of Assisi. But then God had given him at
his birth the soul of a poet, as he himself when quite young had in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: a Nation.
CHAPTER XXIII
I HAVE SPOKEN
It was a week after Nyleptha's visit, when I had begun to get
about a little in the middle of the day, that a message came
to me from Sir Henry to say that Sorais would be brought before
them in the Queen's first antechamber at midday, and requesting
my attendance if possible. Accordingly, greatly drawn by curiosity
to see this unhappy woman once more, I made shift, with the help
of that kind little fellow Alphonse, who is a perfect treasure
to me, and that of another waiting-man, to reach the antechamber.
Allan Quatermain |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: -- in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deerskin
robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and
armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear -- stood
apart with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even
the Puritan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were these painted
THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY 281
The Scarlet Letter |
