| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: That the chill rain, the snow, and the rude blast,
Are tenants also with them; others sleep
Under the arches of the public bridges
All through the autumn nights, till the wet mist
Stiffens their limbs, and fevers come, and so -
DUKE
And so they go to Abraham's bosom, Madam.
They should thank me for sending them to Heaven,
If they are wretched here.
[To the CARDINAL.]
Is it not said
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: And I bethink me of an ancient purgation of mythological error which was
devised, not by Homer, for he never had the wit to discover why he was
blind, but by Stesichorus, who was a philosopher and knew the reason why;
and therefore, when he lost his eyes, for that was the penalty which was
inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely Helen, he at once purged
himself. And the purgation was a recantation, which began thus,--
'False is that word of mine--the truth is that thou didst not embark in
ships, nor ever go to the walls of Troy;'
and when he had completed his poem, which is called 'the recantation,'
immediately his sight returned to him. Now I will be wiser than either
Stesichorus or Homer, in that I am going to make my recantation for
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of
Providence--and who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what
it was--just blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek
and humble professor of--"
"But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long,
like the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to
stop not a single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be
done--"
"Oh, I know it, I know it--it's been one everlasting training and
training and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from the very
cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it's ARTIFICIAL
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
