| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: God, was there not an ascending scale of spiritual gift? And did not
spirits of the same sphere understand each other like brothers in
soul, in flesh, in mind, and in feeling?"
From this the Doctor went on to unfold the most wonderful theories of
sympathy. He set forth in Biblical language the phenomena of love, of
instinctive repulsion, of strong affinities which transcend the laws
of space, of the sudden mingling of souls which seem to recognize each
other. With regard to the different degrees of strength of which our
affections are capable, he accounted for them by the place, more or
less near the centre, occupied by beings in their respective circles.
He gave mathematical expression to God's grand idea in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: any squire that comes to hand, as Sancho does not deign to accompany
me."
"I do deign," said Sancho, deeply moved and with tears in his
eyes; "it shall not be said of me, master mine," he continued, "'the
bread eaten and the company dispersed.' Nay, I come of no ungrateful
stock, for all the world knows, but particularly my own town, who
the Panzas from whom I am descended were; and, what is more, I know
and have learned, by many good words and deeds, your worship's
desire to show me favour; and if I have been bargaining more or less
about my wages, it was only to please my wife, who, when she sets
herself to press a point, no hammer drives the hoops of a cask as
Don Quixote |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: pre-eminence of Athenian oratory. This accounts for the fact that
we find in the forensic annals of a single city, and within the
compass of a single century, such names as Lysias, Isokrates,
Andokides, Hypereides, Aischines, and Demosthenes. The art of
oratory, like the art of sculpture, shone forth more brilliantly
then than ever since, because then the conditions favouring its
development were more perfectly combined than they have since
been. Now, a condition of society in which the multitude can
always be made to stand quietly and listen to a logical discourse
is a condition of high culture. Readers of Xenophon's Anabasis
will remember the frequency of the speeches in that charming
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
