| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: sins as with an heifer's cart-rope! Wo unto them that call evil
good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for
darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Wo
unto those of you that are mighty, that are princes, that mingle
strong drink, which justify the wicked for reward, and take
justice from the just, and turn aside the judgement from the
needy, and take away the right from the poor, that the widow may
be their spoil and the fatherless their prey! And what will they
do in the day of visitation, and to whom will they flee for help?
And where will they leave their glory, that they fall not into
arrest? Like as stubble shall be burnt by live coal of fire, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: brass. And having opened the little door with his ring he set him
in the street.
And the Star-Child went out of the gate of the city, and came to
the wood of which the Magician had spoken to him.
Now this wood was very fair to look at from without, and seemed
full of singing birds and of sweet-scented flowers, and the Star-
Child entered it gladly. Yet did its beauty profit him little, for
wherever he went harsh briars and thorns shot up from the ground
and encompassed him, and evil nettles stung him, and the thistle
pierced him with her daggers, so that he was in sore distress. Nor
could he anywhere find the piece of white gold of which the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the
sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the
paternal till without remorse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn
without an indigestion."
And, once more, listen to the historian. "The Puritans hated puns.
The Bishops were notoriously addicted to them. The Lords Temporal
carried them to the verge of license. Majesty itself must have its
Royal quibble. 'Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh,' said Queen
Elizabeth, 'but ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord
of Leicester.' The gravest wisdom and the highest breeding lent
their sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
