| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: skill and what endurance could those small hands manage a heavy
paddle! It was very wonderful--such small hands, such soft
little palms that knew how to touch his cheek with a feel lighter
than the fanning of a butterfly's wing. Wonderful! He lost
himself lovingly in the contemplation of this tremendous mystery,
and when he looked at the moon again it had risen a hand's
breadth above the trees. Would she come? He forced himself to
lay still, overcoming the impulse to rise and rush round the
clearing again. He turned this way and that; at last, quivering
with the effort, he lay on his back, and saw her face among the
stars looking down on him.
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: If, before, his ritual magic had been concentrated on the
simple purpose of multiplying the animal or, vegetable
forms of his food, now in addition his magical endeavor
would be turned to averting the just wrath of the spirits
who animated these forms--just indeed, for the rudest savage
would perceive the wrong done and the probability of
its retribution. Clearly the wrong done could only be expiated
by an equivalent sacrifice of some kind on the part of
the man, or the tribe--that is by the offering to the totem-
animal or to the corn-spirit of some victim whom these
nature powers in their turn could feed upon and assimilate.
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: the Athenians, who formerly, if they had to deal with the Boeotians[7]
only, made havoc of their territory, are now afraid the Boeotians may
some day harry Attica.
[6] Lebadeia, 447 B.C.; Delium, 424 B.C. For Tolmides and Hippocrates
see Thuc. i. 113; iv. 100 foll.; Grote, "H. G." v. 471; vi. 533.
[7] Reading {ote B. monoi}, al. {ou monoi}, "when the Boeotians were
not unaided."
To which Socrates: Yes, I perceive that this is so, but it seems to me
that the state was never more tractably disposed, never so ripe for a
really good leader, as to-day. For if boldness be the parent of
carelessness, laxity, and insubordination, it is the part of fear to
The Memorabilia |
