| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: "but he hasn't a particle of religion about him. It really isn't
respectable."
"I know it," said St. Clare. "You ladies go to church to learn
how to get along in the world, I suppose, and your piety sheds
respectability on us. If I did go at all, I would go where Mammy
goes; there's something to keep a fellow awake there, at least."
"What! those shouting Methodists? Horrible!" said Marie.
"Anything but the dead sea of your respectable churches, Marie.
Positively, it's too much to ask of a man. Eva, do you
like to go? Come, stay at home and play with me."
"Thank you, papa; but I'd rather go to church."
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Philoponus, who may be considered as the man who first introduced the
simple warriors of the Koreish to the treasures of Greek thought, seems
to have been the first rebel against the Neoplatonist eclecticism. He
maintained, and truly, that Porphyry, Proclus, and the rest, had
entirely misunderstood Aristotle, when they attempted to reconcile him
with Plato, or incorporate his philosophy into Platonism. Aristotle was
henceforth the text-book of Arab savants. It was natural enough. The
Mussulman mind was trained in habits of absolute obedience to the
authority of fixed dogmas. All those attempts to follow out metaphysic
to its highest object, theology, would be useless if not wrong in the
eyes of a Mussulman, who had already his simple and sharply-defined
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: He seemed much concerned. 'You must be in a devil of a state!'
said he; 'though of course it was my fault - damnably silly, vulgar
sort of thing to do! A thousand apologies! But you really must be
run down; you should consult a medico. My dear sir, a hair of the
dog that bit you is clearly indicated. A touch of Blue Ruin, now?
Or, come: it's early, but is man the slave of hours? what do you
say to a chop and a bottle in Dumbreck's Hotel?'
I refused all false comfort; but when he went on to remind me that
this was the day when the University of Cramond met; and to propose
a five-mile walk into the country and a dinner in the company of
young asses like himself, I began to think otherwise. I had to
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