| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: together. Not a tree was to be seen anywhere, except on the banks of the
river, and that was far away, and the sun beat on her head. Round her fed
the Angora goats she was herding; pretty things, especially the little
ones, with white silky curls that touched the ground. But Jannita sat
crying. If an angel should gather up in his cup all the tears that have
been shed, I think the bitterest would be those of children.
By and by she was so tired, and the sun was so hot, she laid her head
against the milk-bush, and dropped asleep.
She dreamed a beautiful dream. She thought that when she went back to the
farmhouse in the evening, the walls were covered with vines and roses, and
the kraals were not made of red stone, but of lilac trees full of blossom.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: the boy explained, stepping toward the window to decipher
the label on a bundle of roots in his hand, "but that's no
good unless there's regular practice coming into the office
all the while. THAT'S how you learn to be a lawyer.
But Gorringe don't have what I call a practice at all.
He just sees men in the other room there, with the door shut,
and whatever there is to do he does it all himself."
The minister remembered a stray hint somewhere that
Mr. Gorringe was a money-lender--what was colloquially
called a "note-shaver." To his rustic sense, there was
something not quite nice about that occupation.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: that the world is the noblest of creations, and God is the best of causes.
And the world being thus created according to the eternal pattern is the
copy of something; and we may assume that words are akin to the matter of
which they speak. What is spoken of the unchanging or intelligible must be
certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be
probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief. And amid the
variety of opinions which have arisen about God and the nature of the world
we must be content to take probability for our rule, considering that I,
who am the speaker, and you, who are the judges, are only men; to
probability we may attain but no further.
SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus, I like your manner of approaching the
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