| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: It will seek thee, my dear ELFONZO, it will find thee--thou canst
not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out from the
remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have
foretold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind;
but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear;
yet Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation--take again in thy
hand that chord of sweet sounds--struggle with the civilized world,
and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground--
let the night-OWL send forth its screams from the stubborn oak--
let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together;
but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place. Our most
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: the spirit renders him excitable;--on the least provocation he flames up at
once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows
irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable.
Exactly.
And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great
feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at
first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and
he becomes twice the man that he was.
Certainly.
And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse with the
Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: propose that an inspector should call every morning at each house
to see that each citizen rose up and did manual labour for eight
hours. Humanity has got beyond that stage, and reserves such a
form of life for the people whom, in a very arbitrary manner, it
chooses to call criminals. But I confess that many of the
socialistic views that I have come across seem to me to be tainted
with ideas of authority, if not of actual compulsion. Of course,
authority and compulsion are out of the question. All association
must be quite voluntary. It is only in voluntary associations that
man is fine.
But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less
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