| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: but they are inspired and divine.
There may be some trace of irony in this curious passage, which forms the
concluding portion of the Dialogue. But Plato certainly does not mean to
intimate that the supernatural or divine is the true basis of human life.
To him knowledge, if only attainable in this world, is of all things the
most divine. Yet, like other philosophers, he is willing to admit that
'probability is the guide of life (Butler's Analogy.);' and he is at the
same time desirous of contrasting the wisdom which governs the world with a
higher wisdom. There are many instincts, judgments, and anticipations of
the human mind which cannot be reduced to rule, and of which the grounds
cannot always be given in words. A person may have some skill or latent
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: the little blue-checked-apron girls playing in the sand; and Sister
Ignatius, who cooked the cakes with the caraway seeds in them; and
Sister Theckla, who taught the little girls to Count and to Sing.
Why, the whole world, surely the up-on-the mountain-world, seemed
full of Only-Just-Ladies.
Not just a Lady here and there, coming to visit with hats on, to
talk a little to the Sisters, to look at the little girls with blue
checked aprons on. But here they were coming and going all the
time, moving about, and living in the cabins, walking everywhere
with or without hats on, standing on the gray cliffs, and looking
down--maybe into the heart of a worldwide violet there, off the edge
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: enter with one companion, my Lord Earl."
"Dares Norman of Torn enter the castle of Simon
de Montfort--thinks he that I keep a robbers' roost!"
cried the fierce old warrior.
"Norman of Torn dares ride where he will in all Eng-
land," boasted the red giant. "Will you see him in peace,
My Lord?"
"Let him enter," said De Montfort, "but no knavery,
now, we are a thousand men here, well armed and
ready fighters."
Shandy returned to his master with the reply, and
The Outlaw of Torn |
