| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: couldn't see him good. Then he started for the stile,
and as he went over it the moon came out strong, and he
had a long-handled shovel over his shoulder, and we see
the white patch on the old work-gown. So Tom says:
"He's a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed
to follow him and see where he's going to. There, he's
turned down by the tobacker-field. Out of sight now.
It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better."
We waited a long time, but he didn't come back any more,
or if he did he come around the other way; so at last we
was tuckered out and went to sleep and had nightmares,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: younger than itself, if it is to have something to become older than.
What do you mean?
I mean this:--A thing does not need to become different from another thing
which is already different; it IS different, and if its different has
become, it has become different; if its different will be, it will be
different; but of that which is becoming different, there cannot have been,
or be about to be, or yet be, a different--the only different possible is
one which is becoming.
That is inevitable.
But, surely, the elder is a difference relative to the younger, and to
nothing else.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: of the earth now. As I came at night so I shall go."
"Impossible!" I murmured. "You can't."
"Can't? . . . Not naked like a soul on the Day of Judgment. I
shall freeze on to this sleeping-suit. The Last Day is not yet -
and you have understood thoroughly. Didn't you?"
I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly that I
understood - and my hesitation in letting that man swim away from
my ship's side had been a mere sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice.
"It can't be done now till next night," I breathed out. "The ship
is on the off-shore tack and the wind may fail us."
"As long as I know that you understand," he whispered. "But of
'Twixt Land & Sea |
