| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: is gone; and you have nothing left but that most depressing of all
things: a victim. Now who can think of Shakespear as a man with a
grievance? Even in that most thoroughgoing and inspired of all
Shakespear's loves: his love of music (which Mr Harris has been the
first to appreciate at anything like its value), there is a dash of
mockery. "Spit in the hole, man; and tune again." "Divine air! Now
is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale
the souls out of men's bodies?" "An he had been a dog that should
have howled thus, they would have hanged him." There is just as much
Shakespear here as in the inevitable quotation about the sweet south
and the bank of violets.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he
gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due
to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a
living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope--fervently
do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
Second Inaugural Address |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us,
In their turn likewise, if we don't believe
They also age with eld? Behold we not
The rended basalt ruining amain
Down from the lofty mountains, powerless
To dure and dree the mighty forces there
Of finite time?- for they would never fall
Rended asudden, if from infinite Past
They had prevailed against all engin'ries
Of the assaulting aeons, with no crash.
Again, now look at This, which round, above,
Of The Nature of Things |
