| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: truth refused, and for every falsehood enforced; so that he is more
strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast as he
more and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close
upon him, and as "the golden opes, the iron shuts amain."
We have got something out of the lines, I think, and much more is
yet to be found in them; but we have done enough by way of example
of the kind of word-by-word examination of your author which is
rightly called "reading;" watching every accent and expression, and
putting ourselves always in the author's place, annihilating our own
personality, and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able
assuredly to say, "Thus Milton thought," not "Thus I thought, in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: And all the world caught music from your mouth;
I saw the light as one who had been blind,
And knew my sun and song and spring were you.
Soul's Birth
When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body's flower,
And were they both at one same precious hour
Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?
Or had your soul since dim creation burned,
A star in some still region of the sky,
That leaping earthward, left its place on high
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: This crevice was too small to allow for the passage of
Saber-Tooth, and he came out the way he had gone in,
unsatisfied and angry. It was evident that his night's
hunting had been unsuccessful and that he had expected
to make a meal off of us. He caught sight of the two
Folk at the other cave-mouth and sprang for them. Of
course, they darted through the passageway into the
first cave. He emerged angrier than ever and snarling.
Pandemonium broke loose amongst the rest of us. All up
and down the great bluff, we crowded the crevices and
outside ledges, and we were all chattering and
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