| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: dead wolves? This is no good hunting."
"It is my Word which I have spoken. The Trees know, the
River knows. Till the dhole have gone by my Word comes not
back to me."
"Ngssh! This changes all trails. I had thought to take thee
away with me to the northern marshes, but the Word--even the
Word of a little, naked, hairless Manling--is the Word.
Now I, Kaa, say----"
"Think well, Flathead, lest thou tie thyself into the death-knot
also. I need no Word from thee, for well I know----"
"Be it so, then," said Kaa. "I will give no Word; but what is in
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half
cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so
poor that, clad in such a suit, of his own earning, there will not
be found wise men to do him reverence?
When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress
tells me gravely, "They do not make them so now," not emphasizing
the "They" at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as
the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply
because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so
rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment
absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: in the works of Dr. Johnson of any acquaintance with his writings. He
probably would have refuted Plato without reading him, in the same fashion
in which he supposed himself to have refuted Bishop Berkeley's theory of
the non-existence of matter. If we except the so-called English
Platonists, or rather Neo-Platonists, who never understood their master,
and the writings of Coleridge, who was to some extent a kindred spirit,
Plato has left no permanent impression on English literature.
7. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that they
are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor the other
are immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from
them which tends to raise individuals above the common routine of society
The Republic |
