| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: I found it necessary to take myself firmly, as it were, by the
mental coat-collar, and resolve not to spoil the chance of catching
the only ouananiche in the Unpronounceable River by undue haste in
fishing for him.
I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line
with great deliberation and the proper knot. Then I gave my whole
mind to the important question of a wise selection of flies.
It is astonishing how much time and mental anxiety a man can spend
on an apparently simple question like this. When you are buying
flies in a shop it seems as if you never had half enough. You keep
on picking out a half-dozen of each new variety as fast as the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: goblin-badgers, or any creatures of that kind. As for lonesome places, I
like them: they are suitable for meditation. I am accustomed to sleeping in
the open air: and I have learned never to be anxious aboutmy life."
"You must be indeed a brave man, Sir Priest," the peasant responded, "to
lie down here! This place has a bad name,-- a very bad name. But, as the
proverb has it, Kunshi ayayuki ni chikayorazu ['The superior man does not
needlessly expose himself to peril']; and I must assure you, Sir, that it
is very dangerous to sleep here. Therefore, although my house is only a
wretched thatched hut, let me beg of you to come home with me at once. In
the way of food, I have nothing to offer you; but there is a roof at least,
and you can sleep under it without risk."
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: science which arrays them in harmonious order, giving to the organic and
inorganic, to the physical and moral, their respective limits, and showing
how they all work together in the world and in man.
Plato arranges in order the stages of knowledge and of existence. They are
the steps or grades by which he rises from sense and the shadows of sense
to the idea of beauty and good. Mind is in motion as well as at rest
(Soph.); and may be described as a dialectical progress which passes from
one limit or determination of thought to another and back again to the
first. This is the account of dialectic given by Plato in the Sixth Book
of the Republic, which regarded under another aspect is the mysticism of
the Symposium. He does not deny the existence of objects of sense, but
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