| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: in the sun. Withdraw then somewhere far from tge sun, while you
have these waxen sentiments.
CVIII
We must approach this matter in a different way; it is great
and mystical: it is no common thing; nor given to every man.
Wisdom alone, it may be, will not suffice for the care of youth:
a man needs also a certain measure of readiness--an aptitude for
the office; aye, and certain bodily qualities; and above all, to
be counselled of God Himself to undertake this post; even as He
counselled Socrates to fill the post of one who confutes error,
assigning to Diogenes the royal office of high reproof, and to
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Lament for a Foster Son, and He going to the War Against the
King of Foreign.
"Ochone
He is gone from me the son of my mind
And he in his golden youth like Angus Oge
Angus of the bright birds
And his mind strong and subtle like the mind of Cuchulin on
Muirtheme.
Awirra sthrue
His brow is as white as the milk of the cows of Maeve
And his cheeks like the cherries of the tree
This Side of Paradise |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: exchanged Bibles, on one of which Burns, for greater
security, had inscribed texts as to the binding nature of an
oath; and surely, if ceremony can do aught to fix the
wandering affections, here were two people united for life.
Mary came of a superstitious family, so that she perhaps
insisted on these rites; but they must have been eminently to
the taste of Burns at this period; for nothing would seem
superfluous, and no oath great enough, to stay his tottering
constancy.
Events of consequence now happened thickly in the poet's
life. His book was announced; the Armours sought to summon
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