| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: noise of stamping horses came from the stalls. But there was no
other sound of life. The fields around lay naked to the moon.
They saw no man, except that once, on a path that skirted the
farther edge of a meadow, three dark figures passed them, running
very swiftly.
Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket,
traversed it, and climbing to the left, emerged suddenly upon
a glade, round and level except at the northern side, where a
hillock was crowned with a huge oak-tree. It towered above
the heath, a giant with contorted arms, beckoning to the host
of lesser trees. "Here," cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed
in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate
wants help."
"And yet I have heard that there is a great deal
of wine drunk in Oxford."
"Oxford! There is no drinking at Oxford now,
I assure you. Nobody drinks there. You would hardly meet
with a man who goes beyond his four pints at the utmost.
Now, for instance, it was reckoned a remarkable thing,
at the last party in my rooms, that upon an average we
cleared about five pints a head. It was looked upon
Northanger Abbey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: (Compare Phaedrus.) This is the reason why he abstains from fleshly lusts,
and not because he fears loss or disgrace, which is the motive of other
men. He too has been a captive, and the willing agent of his own
captivity. But philosophy has spoken to him, and he has heard her voice;
she has gently entreated him, and brought him out of the 'miry clay,' and
purged away the mists of passion and the illusions of sense which envelope
him; his soul has escaped from the influence of pleasures and pains, which
are like nails fastening her to the body. To that prison-house she will
not return; and therefore she abstains from bodily pleasures--not from a
desire of having more or greater ones, but because she knows that only when
calm and free from the dominion of the body can she behold the light of
|
