| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: When he can READ, his thought has slackened its hold. - You talk
about reading Shakspeare, using him as an expression for the
highest intellect, and you wonder that any common person should be
so presumptuous as to suppose his thought can rise above the text
which lies before him. But think a moment. A child's reading of
Shakspeare is one thing, and Coleridge's or Schlegel's reading of
him is another. The saturation-point of each mind differs from
that of every other. But I think it is as true for the small mind
which can only take up a little as for the great one which takes up
much, that the suggested trains of thought and feeling ought always
to rise above - not the author, but the reader's mental version of
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: "It ain't much -- a cat does that much -- but it's bet-
ter than nothing. What did you dream?"
"Why, Wednesday night I dreamt that you was
sitting over there by the bed, and Sid was sitting by
the woodbox, and Mary next to him."
"Well, so we did. So we always do. I'm glad
your dreams could take even that much trouble about
us."
"And I dreamt that Joe Harper's mother was here."
"Why, she was here! Did you dream any more?"
"Oh, lots. But it's so dim, now."
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: sleep, when they never tired?
And now, as the brilliant sun sank low over the Winkie
Country of Oz, tinting the glistening tin towers and
tin minarets of the tin castle with glorious sunset
hues, there approached along a winding pathway Woot the
Wanderer, who met at the castle entrance a Winkie
servant.
The servants of the Tin Woodman all wore tin helmets
and tin breastplates and uniforms covered with tiny tin
discs sewed closely together on silver cloth, so that
their bodies sparkled as beautifully as did the tin
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
