| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: horrible enough, but, with the awful smell added, was simply
unbearable. The Worm's hole appeared to breathe forth death in its
most repulsive forms. The friends, with one impulse, moved to the
top of the Brow, where a fresh breeze from the sea was blowing up.
At the top of the Brow, beneath them as they looked down, they saw a
shining mass of white, which looked strangely out of place amongst
such wreckage as they had been viewing. It appeared so strange that
Adam suggested trying to find a way down, so that they might see it
more closely.
"We need not go down; I know what it is," Sir Nathaniel said. "The
explosions of last night have blown off the outside of the cliffs--
Lair of the White Worm |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: that while employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give
credibility to his tales, he is not disposed to insist upon their literal
truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, 'Something of the kind is true;'
or, as in the Gorgias, 'This you will think to be an old wife's tale, but
you can think of nothing truer;' or, as in the Statesman, he describes his
work as a 'mass of mythology,' which was introduced in order to teach
certain lessons; or, as in the Phaedrus, he secretly laughs at such stories
while refusing to disturb the popular belief in them.
The greater interest of the myth consists in the philosophical lessons
which Plato presents to us in this veiled form. Here, as in the tale of
Er, the son of Armenius, he touches upon the question of freedom and
Statesman |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.
Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
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