| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: humanity was escaping, even then it was escaping, from its
extreme imprisonment in individuals. Salvation from the bitter
intensities of self, which had been a conscious religious end for
thousands of years, which men had sought in mortifications, in
the wilderness, in meditation, and by innumerable strange paths,
was coming at last with the effect of naturalness into the talk
of men, into the books they read, into their unconscious
gestures, into their newspapers and daily purposes and everyday
acts. The broad horizons, the magic possibilities that the spirit
of the seeker had revealed to them, were charming them out of
those ancient and instinctive preoccupations from which the very
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: The chieftain stroked moodily somewhat his beard,
A sable long silver'd: and press'd down his brow
On his hand, heavy vein'd. All his countenance, now
Unwitness'd, at once fell dejected, and dreary,
As a curtain let fall by a hand that's grown weary,
Into puckers and folds. From his lips, unrepress'd,
Steals th' impatient sigh which reveals in man's breast
A conflict conceal'd, and experience at strife
With itself,--the vex'd heart's passing protest on life.
He turn'd to his papers. He heard the light tread
Of a faint foot behind him: and, lifting his head,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: ring of white about them as he stared at the empty ground. There
was no pot of boiled fish! There was no water-man in sight! "Oh,
if only I had shared my food like a real Dakota, I would not have
lost it all! Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the
water? He swims faster than I could ever run! That is what he has
done. He has laughed at me for carrying a weight on my back while
he shot hither like an arrow!"
Crying thus to himself, Iktomi stepped to the water's brink.
He stooped forward with a hand on each bent knee and peeped far
into the deep water.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I see you, my friend, sitting with
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