| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: to the sight of common mortals.
By degrees the royal wanderers were taught to understand that they
had for a time laid aside their dignity, and were to expect only
such regard as liberality and courtesy could procure. And Imlac
having by many admonitions prepared them to endure the tumults of a
port and the ruggedness of the commercial race, brought them down
to the sea-coast.
The Prince and his sister, to whom everything was new, were
gratified equally at all places, and therefore remained for some
months at the port without any inclination to pass further. Imlac
was content with their stay, because he did not think it safe to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: things,' and that 'All knowledge is perception.' This was the subjective
which corresponded to the objective 'All is flux.' But the thoughts of men
deepened, and soon they began to be aware that knowledge was neither sense,
nor yet opinion--with or without explanation; nor the expression of
thought, nor the enumeration of parts, nor the addition of characteristic
marks. Motion and rest were equally ill adapted to express its nature,
although both must in some sense be attributed to it; it might be described
more truly as the mind conversing with herself; the discourse of reason;
the hymn of dialectic, the science of relations, of ideas, of the so-called
arts and sciences, of the one, of the good, of the all:--this is the way
along which Plato is leading us in his later dialogues. In its higher
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: One bounded leisurely up the slope; the other, with long ears erect,
stopped to look at me. It was no more than fifty yards away. Trembling with
eagerness, I leveled my rifle. I could not get the sight to stay steady on
the deer. Even then, with the rifle wobbling in my intense excitement, I
thought of how beautiful that wild creature was. Straining every nerve, I
drew the sight till it was in line with the gray shape, then fired. The
deer leaped down the slope, staggered, and crumpled down in a heap.
I tore through the bushes, and had almost reached the bottom of the hollow
when I remembered that a wounded deer was dangerous. So I halted. The gray
form was as still as stone. I ventured closer. The deer was dead. My bullet
had entered high above the shoulder at the juncture of the neck. Though I
The Young Forester |
