| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: very highest raptures it tends to do so. The state of
consciousness becomes then insusceptible of any verbal
description. Mystical teachers are unanimous as to this. Saint
John of the Cross, for instance, one of the best of them,
thus describes the condition called the "union of love," which,
he says, is reached by "dark contemplation." In this the Deity
compenetrates the soul, but in such a hidden way that the soul--
"finds no terms, no means, no comparison whereby to render the
sublimity of the wisdom and the delicacy of the spiritual feeling
with which she is filled. . . . We receive this mystical
knowledge of God clothed in none of the kinds of images, in none
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: all nonsense, now that I am awake."
My friend now threw sticks of wood and dry chips upon the fire,
and seeing it blaze like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, seized the
champagne bottle, and drank two or three brimming bumpers,
successively. The heady liquor combined with his agitation to
throw him into a species of rage. He laid violent hands on the
tales. In one instant more, their faults and beauties would alike
have vanished in a glowing purgatory. But, all at once, I
remembered passages of high imagination, deep pathos, original
thoughts, and points of such varied excellence, that the vastness
of the sacrifice struck me most forcibly. I caught his arm.
The Snow Image |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: "All thanks for this good meal," he said, licking his lips.
"How beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes!
And so young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that
the children of kings are men from the beginning."
Now, Tabaqui knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing
so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased
him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.
Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made,
and then he said spitefully:
"Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He
will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me."
The Jungle Book |
