| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: cerebral forces. The value of a human soul, like the value of a man's life
to himself, is inestimable, and cannot be reckoned in earthly or material
things. The human being alone has the consciousness of truth and justice
and love, which is the consciousness of God. And the soul becoming more
conscious of these, becomes more conscious of her own immortality.
10. The last ground of our belief in immortality, and the strongest, is
the perfection of the divine nature. The mere fact of the existence of God
does not tend to show the continued existence of man. An evil God or an
indifferent God might have had the power, but not the will, to preserve us.
He might have regarded us as fitted to minister to his service by a
succession of existences,--like the animals, without attributing to each
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: tones on the bridge would cease, and everything round
Sterne seemed to become more still and more profoundly
silent. Slightly chilled and with his back aching a little
from long immobility, he would steal away to his room
on the port side of the deck. He had long since parted
with the last vestige of incredulity; of the original
emotions, set into a tumult by the discovery, some trace
of the first awe alone remained. Not the awe of the
man himself--he could blow him up sky-high with six
words--rather it was an awestruck indignation at the
reckless perversity of avarice (what else could it be?),
End of the Tether |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: high and dry, on Paignton sands.
Torbay is a place which should be as much endeared to the
naturalist as to the patriot and to the artist. We cannot gaze on
its blue ring of water, and the great limestone bluffs which bound
it to the north and south, without a glow passing through our
hearts, as we remember the terrible and glorious pageant which
passed by in the glorious July days of 1588, when the Spanish
Armada ventured slowly past Berry Head, with Elizabeth's gallant
pack of Devon captains (for the London fleet had not yet joined)
following fast in its wake, and dashing into the midst of the vast
line, undismayed by size and numbers, while their kin and friends
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