| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going
of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other, and pass away. When
the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not return. When the
curtain falls no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are
blown out; and what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a
spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the gaslight
cannot hear his breathing. Life may be painted according to either method;
but the methods are different. The canons of criticism that bear upon the
one cut cruelly upon the other.
It has been suggested by a kind critic that he would better have liked the
little book if it had been a history of wild adventure; of cattle driven
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: ALCIBIADES: That is evident.
SOCRATES: And that which is better is also nobler?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And what is nobler is more becoming?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then to the bad man slavery is more becoming, because better?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then vice is only suited to a slave?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And virtue to a freeman?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our
strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh
incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance
of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if
we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live
by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night
we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to
uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to
live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change.
This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there
can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to
Walden |
