| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: whole invoice of the life-years of Shakespeare numbers--there are
still findable two or three river-pilots who saw me do creditable
things in those ancient days; and several white-headed engineers;
and several roustabouts and mates; and several deck-hands who
used to heave the lead for me and send up on the still night the
"Six--feet--SCANT!" that made me shudder, and the "M-a-r-k--
TWAIN!" that took the shudder away, and presently the darling "By
the d-e-e-p--FOUR!" that lifted me to heaven for joy. [1] They
know about me, and can tell. And so do printers, from St. Louis
to New York; and so do newspaper reporters, from Nevada to San
Francisco. And so do the police. If Shakespeare had really been
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:
When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in
a circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A more
terrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it
would be difficult to imagine.
Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the
jungle shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had
departed Woola and I resumed our journey.
Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the day;
The Warlord of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: naming is a kind of speaking, and we must name according to a natural
process, and with a proper instrument. We cut with a knife, we pierce with
an awl, we weave with a shuttle, we name with a name. And as a shuttle
separates the warp from the woof, so a name distinguishes the natures of
things. The weaver will use the shuttle well,--that is, like a weaver; and
the teacher will use the name well,--that is, like a teacher. The shuttle
will be made by the carpenter; the awl by the smith or skilled person. But
who makes a name? Does not the law give names, and does not the teacher
receive them from the legislator? He is the skilled person who makes them,
and of all skilled workmen he is the rarest. But how does the carpenter
make or repair the shuttle, and to what will he look? Will he not look at
|
