| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: globe everywhere, some of them deeper and more extended than that which we
inhabit, others deeper but with a narrower opening than ours, and some are
shallower and also wider. All have numerous perforations, and there are
passages broad and narrow in the interior of the earth, connecting them
with one another; and there flows out of and into them, as into basins, a
vast tide of water, and huge subterranean streams of perennial rivers, and
springs hot and cold, and a great fire, and great rivers of fire, and
streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like the rivers of mud in Sicily, and
the lava streams which follow them), and the regions about which they
happen to flow are filled up with them. And there is a swinging or see-saw
in the interior of the earth which moves all this up and down, and is due
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: through this transmogrification. I have traced his career in the
files of the Chicago newspapers, and find him herding sheep,
setting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake
spiritualism, joining the Mormon Church, then the "Christian
Catholic Church in Zion", and then the cult of Brighouse, who
claimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up in
Chicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and
occult sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing
metropolis. The Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in
India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park
Avenue, and the prophet gives tea-parties at which his disciples
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: under it again. You may lie to-night in the inn. It shall not
be said that Cocheforet,' she continued proudly, 'returned even
treachery with inhospitality; and I will give orders to that end.
But to-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur
you are! Spy and coward!'
With those last words she moved away. I would have said
something, I could almost have found it in my heart to stop her
and make her hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was the
stronger, and I might have done with her as I pleased. But she
swept by me so fearlessly, as I might pass some loathsome cripple
on the road, that I stood turned to stone. Without looking at
|
