| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: his sisters, in their rockers, were talking to the minister's
daughters next door about how many shirtwaists they had made in
the last week, and bow many waffles someone had eaten at the last
church supper. When the weather was warm, and his father was in
a particularly jovial frame of mind, the girls made lemonade,
which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher, ornamented
with forget-me-nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought very
fine, and the neighbors always joked about the suspicious color
of the pitcher.
Today Paul's father sat on the top step, talking to a young
man who shifted a restless baby from knee to knee. He happened
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: otherwise, any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous. This is my
position still, and if what I am saying is true, and injustice is the
greatest of evils to the doer of injustice, and yet there is if possible a
greater than this greatest of evils (compare Republic), in an unjust man
not suffering retribution, what is that defence of which the want will make
a man truly ridiculous? Must not the defence be one which will avert the
greatest of human evils? And will not the worst of all defences be that
with which a man is unable to defend himself or his family or his friends?
--and next will come that which is unable to avert the next greatest evil;
thirdly that which is unable to avert the third greatest evil; and so of
other evils. As is the greatness of evil so is the honour of being able to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
chief himself brought the service to a sudden check. He had just
learned of the treacherous conduct of one in whom he had every
reason to trust. That evening the prayer seemed unusually short
and formal. As the singing stopped he arose abruptly and left the
room. I hastened after him, fearing some sudden illness. 'What is
it?' I asked. 'It is this,' was the reply; 'I am not yet fit to
say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us."'
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