| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: wrought by an inspiration to be understood by sympathy alone.
The prophetic element in his character occasionally coloured,
and even injured, the utterance of the man of science; but
subtracting that element, though you might have conferred on him
intellectual symmetry, you would have destroyed his motive force.
But let us pass from the label of this casket to the jewel it contains.
'I have long,' he says, 'held an opinion, almost amounting to
conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural
knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter
are made manifest have one common origin; in other words, are so
directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: which marks the second stage of his school is not an inquiry, but a
justification, not only of the Egyptian, but of all possible theurgies
and superstitions; perhaps the best attempt of the kind which the world
has ever seen; that which marks the third is a mere cloud-castle, an
inverted pyramid, not of speculation, but of dogmatic assertion, patched
together from all accessible rags and bones of the dead world. Some
here will, perhaps, guess from my rough descriptions, that I speak of
Iamblichus and Proclus.
Whether or not Iamblichus wrote the famous work usually attributed to
him, which describes itself as the letter of Abamnon the Teacher to
Porphyry, he became the head of that school of Neoplatonists who fell
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: of shooting pheasants and partridges, and want to have a go at
some large game again. There, you know the feeling -- when one
has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes insipid to the
palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems
to me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare
say that I am a fool for my pains, but I can't help it; I long
to go, and, what is more, I mean to go.' He paused, and then
went on again. 'And, after all, why should I not go? I have
no wife or parent, no chick or child to keep me. If anything
happens to me the baronetcy will go to my brother George and
his boy, as it would ultimately do in any case. I am of no importance
Allan Quatermain |
