| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: the commerce and the colonisation of the globe. Within three hundred
years after his works reached Europe, Ptolemy had taught the Portuguese
to sail round Africa; and from that day the stream of eastern wealth
flowed no longer through the Red Sea, or the Persian Gulf, on its way to
the new countries of the West; and not only Alexandria, but Damietta and
Bagdad, dwindled down to their present insignificance. And yet the
whirligig of time brings about its revenges. The stream of commerce is
now rapidly turning back to its old channel; and British science bids
fair to make Alexandria once more the inn of all the nations.
It is with a feeling of awe that one looks upon the huge possibilities
of her future. Her own physical capacities, as the great mind of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: fashion them after their own hearts?
When is this accomplished? he said.
When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a
court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and
there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said
or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and
clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they
are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame--at such a time
will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any
private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of
popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: be married in time for our wedding dinner."
The lover smiled, and his drooping eyelids fell
still lower as he watched her intently.
"I want that dinner here in this little place,
Kiddo----"
She blushed and protested.
"I thought we'd go to the Beach and spend the night
there."
"Here, girlie, here! I love this little place--
it's so like you. Get the old wild-cat who cleans up
for you to fix us a dinner here all by ourselves--
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