| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: until I had walked about five miles farther, and sat down on the
grass, beside a beautiful spring, to eat my lunch.
What is there in a little physical rest that has such magic to
restore the sense of pleasure? A few moments ago nothing pleased
you--the bloom was gone from the peach; but now it has come back
again--you wonder and admire. Thus cheerful and contented I
trudged up the right arm of the valley to the Baths of Neu-Prags,
less venerable, but apparently more popular than Alt-Prags, and on
beyond them, through the woods, to the superb Pragser-Wildsee, a
lake whose still waters, now blue as sapphire under the clear sky,
and now green as emerald under gray clouds, sleep encircled by
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: by he shall bring thee word of the fight."
"Ah," said Mowgli, quite gravely, "must I go to the marshes and
catch little fish and sleep in a tree, or must I ask help of the
Bandar-log and crack nuts, while the Pack fight below?"
"It is to the death," said Akela. "Thou hast never met the
dhole--the Red Killer. Even the Striped One----"
"Aowa! Aowa!" said Mowgli pettingly. "I have killed one striped
ape, and sure am I in my stomach that Shere Khan would have left
his own mate for meat to the dhole if he had winded a pack
across three ranges. Listen now: There was a wolf, my father,
and there was a wolf, my mother, and there was an old gray wolf
The Second Jungle Book |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: provided there is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory
works well. It would work altogether well if there were no
crevasses.
Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and
escaped. But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into
a crevasse?
There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis
Younghusband called "Within." [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is
the confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in
Providence until he was already well advanced in years. He went
through battles and campaigns, he filled positions of great honour
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