| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: asleep. I thought I had never seen the heavens and the earth look so
beautiful before. I walked down the road. The old, old, old tiredness was
gone.
Presently there came a peasant boy down the path leading his ass; she had
two large panniers fastened to her sides; and they went down the road
before me.
I had never seen him before; but I should have liked to walk by him and to
have held his hand--only, he would not have known why.
Alassio, Italy.
VIII. LIFE'S GIFTS.
I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: textbooks from playing into Germany's hand by teaching hate of England to
our boys and girls. Beside the sickening silliness which still asks,
"What has England done in the war?" is a silliness still more sickening
which says, "Germany is beaten. Let us forgive and forget." That is not
Christianity. There is nothing Christian about it. It is merely
sentimental slush, sloppy shirking of anything that compels national
alertness, or effort, or self-discipline, or self-denial; a moral
cowardice that pushes away any fact which disturbs a shallow, torpid,
irresponsible, self-indulgent optimism.
Our golden age of isolation is over. To attempt to return to it would be
a mere pernicious day-dream. To hark back to Washington's warning against
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: me."
The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these
things in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and
savage ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd.
The sort of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him
at random came like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture
of a wood-cutter who is splitting wood. When he had finished,
the audience burst into a laugh. He stared at the public, and,
perceiving that they were laughing, and not understanding why,
he began to laugh himself.
It was inauspicious.
Les Miserables |
