| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: the caricature of a system. They are the ever-varying expression of
Plato's Idealism. The terms used in them are in their substance and
general meaning the same, although they seem to be different. They pass
from the subject to the object, from earth (diesseits) to heaven (jenseits)
without regard to the gulf which later theology and philosophy have made
between them. They are also intended to supplement or explain each other.
They relate to a subject of which Plato himself would have said that 'he
was not confident of the precise form of his own statements, but was strong
in the belief that something of the kind was true.' It is the spirit, not
the letter, in which they agree--the spirit which places the divine above
the human, the spiritual above the material, the one above the many, the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: of the cave, who bowed very politely when he saw he had attracted
their attention. He was a very old man, bent nearly double; but the
queerest thing about him was his white hair and beard. These were so
long that they reached to his feet, and both the hair and the beard
were carefully plaited into many braids, and the end of each braid
fastened with a bow of colored ribbon.
"Where did you come from?" asked Dorothy, wonderingly.
"No place at all," answered the man with the braids; "that is, not
recently. Once I lived on top the earth, but for many years I have
had my factory in this spot--half way up Pyramid Mountain."
"Are we only half way up?" enquired the boy, in a discouraged tone.
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: her fall forward upon the floor, convulsed.
"My God!" cried George. He sprang toward her, and tried to lift
her, but she shrank from him, repelling him with a gesture of
disgust, of hatred, of the most profound terror. "Don't touch
me!" she screamed, like a maniac. "Don't touch me!"
CHAPTER V
It was in vain that Madame Dupont sought to control her daughter-
in-law. Henriette was beside herself, frantic, she could not be
brought to listen to any one. She rushed into the other room,
and when the older woman followed her, shrieked out to be left
alone. Afterwards, she fled to her own room and barred herself
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