| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: ears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; they travelled towards
wine and gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something
higher. That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of humanity
that makes all high achievements and all miserable failure, the
same that spread wings with Icarus, the same that sent Columbus
into the desolate Atlantic, inspired and supported these barbarians
on their perilous march. There is one legend which profoundly
represents their spirit, of how a flying party of these wanderers
encountered a very old man shod with iron. The old man asked them
whither they were going; and they answered with one voice: 'To the
Eternal City!' He looked upon them gravely. 'I have sought it,'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: shapes--such as castles, horses' heads, chinamen and griffins--so that
if any of them broke it would make an excellent umbrella handle.
The Royal Dragon of Spor came crawling into the throne-room rather
clumsily, groaning and moaning with every step and waving its ears
like two blankets flying from a clothesline.
The king looked on it and frowned.
"Why are you not breathing fire and brimstone?" he demanded, angrily.
"Why, I was caught out in a gale the other night," returned the
Dragon, rubbing the back of its ear with its left front paw, as it
paused and looked at the king, "and the wind put out my fire."
"Then why didn't you light it again?" asked Terribus, turning on
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: another in ignorance. And the laws are obviously far more severe on those
who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.
SOCRATES: You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I
am in asking questions of wise men. And I think that this is the only good
point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some
way or other. My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet
one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes
are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing. For speaking generally, I
hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what
proof of ignorance can be greater than to differ from wise men? But I have
one singular good quality, which is my salvation; I am not ashamed to
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