| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: them plainly, and just then something smashed against
him unexpectedly and knocked him over; but it was only
the straw-stuffed body of the Scarecrow that fell upon
him and while he could not see the Scarecrow he managed
to push him off and rose to his feet just as Polychrome
whirled against him and made him tumble again.
Sitting upon the ground, the boy asked:
"Can you see us, Poly?"
"No, indeed," answered the Rainbow's Daughter; "we've
all become invisible."
"How did it happen, do you suppose?" inquired the
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state
before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the
order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such an
one? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward; and
the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward
suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, and who desires leisure that
he may instruct you? There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in
the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than
the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race,
whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in
want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Taxes, a little cousin of his, and a Public Prosecutor, who for ten
years had been dancing round and round one of the hundred 'Tenth
Muses' who adorn the Departments," said he. "But they had no more
dared to touch her than we touch a decorated cream at dessert till
some strong-minded person has made a hole in it."
"Poor boy!" said Bixiou. "I said you had gone to Sancerre to turn
Pegasus out to grass."
"Your joke is as stupid as my Muse is handsome," retorted Lousteau.
"Ask Bianchon, my dear fellow."
"A Muse and a Poet! A homoeopathic cure then!" said Bixiou.
On the tenth day Lousteau received a letter with the Sancerre post-
The Muse of the Department |
