| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: (Acts xix, 19). Doubtless these books of idolatrous divination
and alchemy, of enchantments and witchcraft, were righteously
destroyed by those to whom they had been and might again be
spiritually injurious; and doubtless had they escaped the fire then,
not one of them would have survived to the present time, no MS.
of that age being now extant. Nevertheless, I must confess
to a certain amount of mental disquietude and uneasiness when I
think of books worth 50,000 denarii--or, speaking roughly,
say L18,750,[1] of our modern money being made into bonfires.
What curious illustrations of early heathenism, of Devil worship,
of Serpent worship, of Sun worship, and other archaic forms
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: And then the little boy came into the room where the projecting windows were,
and where the old man sat.
"I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!" said the old man. "And
I thank you because you come over to me."
"Thankee! thankee!" or "cranky! cranky!" sounded from all the furniture; there
was so much of it, that each article stood in the other's way, to get a look
at the little boy.
In the middle of the wall hung a picture representing a beautiful lady, so
young, so glad, but dressed quite as in former times, with clothes that stood
quite stiff, and with powder in her hair; she neither said "thankee, thankee!"
nor "cranky, cranky!" but looked with her mild eyes at the little boy, who
Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: child is taught to be kind, to be respectful, to be quiet, not to
answer back, to be truthful when its elders want to find out anything
from it, to lie when the truth would shock or hurt its elders, to be
above all things obedient, and to be seen and not heard. Here we have
two sets of precepts, each warranted to spoil a child hopelessly if
the other be omitted. Unfortunately we do not allow fair play between
them. The rebellious, intractable, aggressive, selfish set provoke a
corrective resistance, and do not pretend to high moral or religious
sanctions; and they are never urged by grown-up people on young
people. They are therefore more in danger of neglect or suppression
than the other set, which have all the adults, all the laws, all the
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