| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: "But what is the object of it?" went on Minora.
"Why, to clean the linen, I suppose."
"Yes, yes, but why only at such long intervals?"
"It is an outward and visible sign of vast possessions in the shape
of linen. If you were to want to have your clothes washed every week,
as you do in England, you would be put down as a person who only has
just enough to last <218> that length of time, and would be an object
of general contempt."
"But I should be a clean object," cried Minora, "and my house
would not be full of accumulated dirt."
We said nothing--there was nothing to be said.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: good, and if modesty is as much an evil as a good?
All that, Socrates, appears to me to be true; but I should like to know
what you think about another definition of temperance, which I just now
remember to have heard from some one, who said, 'That temperance is doing
our own business.' Was he right who affirmed that?
You monster! I said; this is what Critias, or some philosopher has told
you.
Some one else, then, said Critias; for certainly I have not.
But what matter, said Charmides, from whom I heard this?
No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words, but
whether they are true or not.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poised it in the air a moment,
Pitched it sheer into the river,
Sheer into the swift Pauwating,
Where it still is seen in Summer.
Once as down that foaming river,
Down the rapids of Pauwating,
Kwasind sailed with his companions,
In the stream he saw a beaver,
Saw Ahmeek, the King of Beavers,
Struggling with the rushing currents,
Rising, sinking in the water.
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