| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: woman could worship another woman in the way he worshipped; they could
only seek shelter under the shade which Mr Bankes extended over them both.
Looking along his beam she added to it her different ray, thinking that
she was unquestionably the loveliest of people (bowed over her book); the
best perhaps; but also, different too from the perfect shape which one saw
there. But why different, and how different? she asked herself, scraping
her palette of all those mounds of blue and green which seemed to her like
clods with no life in them now, yet she vowed, she would inspire them,
force them to move, flow, do her bidding tomorrow. How did she differ?
What was the spirit in her, the essential thing, by which, had you found a
crumpled glove in the corner of a sofa, you would have known it, from its
 To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Then we must turn over a new leaf and call you
henceforth Ojo the Lucky," declared the tin man.
"Every reason you have given is absurd. But I have
noticed that those who continually dread ill luck
and fear it will overtake them, have no time to
take advantage of any good fortune that comes
their way. Make up your mind to be Ojo the
Lucky."
"How can I?" asked the boy, "when all my
attempts to save my dear uncle have failed?"
"Never give up, Ojo," advised Dorothy. "No
 The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: they are saying now. 'What does the word "non-plussed" mean?' Socrates is
informed, in reply, that words are lifeless things, and lifeless things
have no sense or meaning. Ctesippus again breaks out, and again has to be
pacified by Socrates, who renews the conversation with Cleinias. The two
Sophists are like Proteus in the variety of their transformations, and he,
like Menelaus in the Odyssey, hopes to restore them to their natural form.
He had arrived at the conclusion that Cleinias must become a philosopher.
And philosophy is the possession of knowledge; and knowledge must be of a
kind which is profitable and may be used. What knowledge is there which
has such a nature? Not the knowledge which is required in any particular
art; nor again the art of the composer of speeches, who knows how to write
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