| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: exaggerations, transferences, and overflows of feeling. The search
for divine truth is like gold washing; nothing is of any value until
most has been swept away.
2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION
One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely
the most various sort. It includes all those heresies which result
from wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those
which are the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the
heresies of the clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The
former are of endless variety and complexity; the latter are in
comparison natural, simple confusions. The former are the errors of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: your great Washington I know. Is it not so?'
"Now, me and Jones thought that nice of the General to remember when
the Fourth came. It made us feel good. He must have heard the news
going round in Philadelphia about that disturbance we had with
England.
"'Yes,' says me and Maxy together, 'we knew it. We were talking about
it when you came in. And you can bet your bottom concession that
there'll be fuss and feathers in the air to-morrow. We are few in
numbers, but the welkin may as well reach out to push the button, for
it's got to ring.'
"'I, too, shall assist,' says the General, thumping his collar-bone.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: her cow-puncher with bright eyes searching his; with elbow on
knee and hand propping chin, her lap became a slant, and from it
Browning the poet slid and toppled, and lay unrescued. For the
slow cow-puncher unfolded his notions of masculine courage and
modesty (though he did not deal in such high-sounding names), and
Molly forgot everything to listen to him, as he forgot himself
and his inveterate shyness and grew talkative to her. "I would
never have supposed that!" she would exclaim as she heard him;
or, presently again, "I never had such an idea!" And her mind
opened with delight to these new things which came from the man's
mind so simple and direct. To Browning they did come back, but
The Virginian |
