| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Dorothy and Billina see that he was educated and could read writing.
The letter was as follows:
"It will please me to have my subjects greet Princess Dorothy, the
bearer of this royal missive, with the same courtesy and consideration
they would extend to me."
"Ha--hum! It is signed 'Ozma of Oz,'" continued the rabbit, "and is
sealed with the Great Seal of the Emerald City. Well, well, well!
How strange! How remarkable!"
"What are you going to do about it?" inquired Dorothy, impatiently.
"We must obey the royal mandate," replied the rabbit. "We are
subjects of Ozma of Oz, and we live in her country. Also we are
The Emerald City of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: philosophy. It is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of
good as the first principle of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in
his writings except in this passage. Nor did it retain any hold upon the
minds of his disciples in a later generation; it was probably
unintelligible to them. Nor does the mention of it in Aristotle appear to
have any reference to this or any other passage in his extant writings.
BOOK VII. And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or
unenlightenment of our nature:--Imagine human beings living in an
underground den which is open towards the light; they have been there from
childhood, having their necks and legs chained, and can only see into the
den. At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: onslaught upon the crew, all this moving tale had such an air of
truth that I could not argue with Captain Littlepage. The old man
looked away from the map as if it had vaguely troubled him, and
regarded me appealingly.
"We were just speaking of"--and he stopped. I saw that he had
suddenly forgotten his subject.
"There were a great many persons at the funeral," I hastened
to say.
"Oh yes," the captain answered, with satisfaction. "All
showed respect who could. The sad circumstances had for a moment
slipped my mind. Yes, Mrs. Begg will be very much missed. She was
|
