| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: little girls stand still and cry outright, regardless of all eyes.
'These two days of comparative peace have quite set me on my legs
again. I was getting worn and weary with anxiety and work. As
usual I have been delighted with my shipwrights. I gave them some
beer on Saturday, making a short oration. To-day when they went
ashore and I came on board, they gave three cheers, whether for me
or the ship I hardly know, but I had just bid them good-bye, and
the ship was out of hail; but I was startled and hardly liked to
claim the compliment by acknowledging it.
'S. S. ELBA: May 25.
'My first intentions of a long journal have been fairly frustrated
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: enquiring after the cause, we can only hope to attain the second best.
Now there is a danger in the contemplation of the nature of things, as
there is a danger in looking at the sun during an eclipse, unless the
precaution is taken of looking only at the image reflected in the water, or
in a glass. (Compare Laws; Republic.) 'I was afraid,' says Socrates,
'that I might injure the eye of the soul. I thought that I had better
return to the old and safe method of ideas. Though I do not mean to say
that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas sees only
through a glass darkly, any more than he who contemplates actual effects.'
If the existence of ideas is granted to him, Socrates is of opinion that he
will then have no difficulty in proving the immortality of the soul. He
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: words, and soon the band of Winged Monkeys flew in through the
open window and stood beside her.
"This is the second time you have called us," said the Monkey
King, bowing before the little girl. "What do you wish?"
"I want you to fly with me to Kansas," said Dorothy.
But the Monkey King shook his head.
"That cannot be done," he said. "We belong to this country alone,
and cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Kansas yet,
and I suppose there never will be, for they don't belong there. We shall
be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert.
Good-bye."
The Wizard of Oz |
