| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: but each of them had lost its lustre. The church had become a
void; it was his presence, her presence, their common presence,
that had made the indispensable medium. If anything was wrong
everything was - her silence spoiled the tune.
Then when three months were gone he felt so lonely that he went
back; reflecting that as they had been his best society for years
his Dead perhaps wouldn't let him forsake them without doing
something more for him. They stood there, as he had left them, in
their tall radiance, the bright cluster that had already made him,
on occasions when he was willing to compare small things with
great, liken them to a group of sea-lights on the edge of the ocean
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: no more value than that of a mere knight-errant,
who has no interest on earth but what lance and
sword may procure him?''
``And Richard Plantagenet,'' said the King,
``desires no more fame than his good lance and
sword may acquire him---and Richard Plantagenet
is prouder of achieving an adventure, with only his
good sword, and his good arm to speed, than if he
led to battle an host of an hundred thousand armed men.''
``But your kingdom, my Liege,'' said Ivanhoe,
``your kingdom is threatened with dissolution and
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: heavens to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the 'two
Suns' of which all Rome was talking, when he can converse about 'the two
nations in one' which had divided Rome ever since the days of the Gracchi.
Like Socrates again, speaking in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he
should assume too much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal
who is discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He would
confine the terms King or State to the rule of reason and justice, and he
will not concede that title either to a democracy or to a monarchy. But
under the rule of reason and justice he is willing to include the natural
superior ruling over the natural inferior, which he compares to the soul
ruling over the body. He prefers a mixture of forms of government to any
The Republic |
