| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter the
thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is
stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the
rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader." This
statement will do at least to set against Buffon's account of
this part of the world and its productions.
Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies laeta, glabra plantis
Americanis" (I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the
aspect of American plants); and I think that in this country
there are no, or at most very few, Africanae bestiae, African
beasts, as the Romans called them, and that in this respect also
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: LADY WINDERMERE. [Standing at table.] I think they should never
be forgiven.
LORD DARLINGTON. And men? Do you think that there should be the
same laws for men as there are for women?
LADY WINDERMERE. Certainly!
LORD DARLINGTON. I think life too complex a thing to be settled by
these hard and fast rules.
LADY WINDERMERE. If we had 'these hard and fast rules,' we should
find life much more simple.
LORD DARLINGTON. You allow of no exceptions?
LADY WINDERMERE. None!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: the wisdom of the old witch who sits aloft forever, frozen into
everlasting stone--thine and one other's. These are not wolves that
thou hast seen, that is no wolf which thou hast slain; nay, they are
ghosts--evil ghosts of men who lived in ages gone, and who must now
live till they be slain by men. And knowest thou how they lived,
Galazi, and what was the food they ate? When the light comes again,
Galazi, climb to the breasts of the stone Witch, and look in the cleft
which is between her breasts. There shalt thou see how these men
lived. And now this doom is on them: they must wander gaunt and hungry
in the shape of wolves, haunting that Ghost Mountain where they once
fed, till they are led forth to die at the hands of men. Because of
Nada the Lily |
