| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: loyalty to what is current, had rejected the heresy with
indignation. From such passages-at-arms, many retire mortified and
ruffled; but Fleeming had no sooner left the house than he fell
into delighted admiration of the spirit of his adversaries. From
that it was but a step to ask himself 'what truth was sticking in
their heads'; for even the falsest form of words (in Fleeming's
life-long opinion) reposed upon some truth, just as he could 'not
even allow that people admire ugly things, they admire what is
pretty in the ugly thing.' And before he sat down to write his
letter, he thought he had hit upon the explanation. 'I fancy the
true idea,' he wrote, 'is that you must never do yourself or anyone
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: Yes, I replied; and yet I am not quite satisfied with this answer. By
heaven, and shall I tell you what I suspect? I will. Assuming that like,
inasmuch as he is like, is the friend of like, and useful to him--or rather
let me try another way of putting the matter: Can like do any good or harm
to like which he could not do to himself, or suffer anything from his like
which he would not suffer from himself? And if neither can be of any use
to the other, how can they be loved by one another? Can they now?
They cannot.
And can he who is not loved be a friend?
Certainly not.
But say that the like is not the friend of the like in so far as he is
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.
So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death, and dying to redeem,
So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroyed, and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.
Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume
Man's nature, lessen or degrade thine own.
Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss
Equal to God, and equally enjoying
God-like fruition, quitted all, to save
Paradise Lost |
