| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: was not likely to wake up before he was called. I got a sleeping-
suit out of my room and, coming back on deck, saw the naked man
from the sea sitting on the main-hatch, glimmering white in the
darkness, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. In a
moment he had concealed his damp body in a sleeping-suit of the
same grey-stripe pattern as the one I was wearing and followed me
like my double on the poop. Together we moved right aft,
barefooted, silent.
"What is it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp
out of the binnacle, and raising it to his face.
"An ugly business."
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: human mind in which Unity and Being occupied the attention of philosophers.
We admire the precision of the language, in which, as in some curious
puzzle, each word is exactly fitted into every other, and long trains of
argument are carried out with a sort of geometrical accuracy. We doubt
whether any abstract notion could stand the searching cross-examination of
Parmenides; and may at last perhaps arrive at the conclusion that Plato has
been using an imaginary method to work out an unmeaning conclusion. But
the truth is, that he is carrying on a process which is not either useless
or unnecessary in any age of philosophy. We fail to understand him,
because we do not realize that the questions which he is discussing could
have had any value or importance. We suppose them to be like the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Allured his eye; thither his course he bends
Through the calm firmament, (but up or down,
By center, or eccentrick, hard to tell,
Or longitude,) where the great luminary
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,
That from his lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses light from far; they, as they move
Their starry dance in numbers that compute
Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp
Turn swift their various motions, or are turned
By his magnetick beam, that gently warms
Paradise Lost |
