| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: With milk and oil I never knew, and therefore did I weep,
And I complaind in the mild air, because I fade away.
And lay me down in thy cold bed, and leave my shining lot.
Queen of the vales, the matron Clay answered: I heard thy sighs.
And all thy moans flew o'er my roof, but I have call'd them down:
Wilt thou O Queen enter my house, tis given thee to enter,
And to return: fear nothing, enter with thy virgin feet.
IV.
The eternal gates terrific porter lifted the northern bar:
Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown;
She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots
Poems of William Blake |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: of Socrates after his death. The calmness of his behaviour, veiling his
face when he can no longer restrain his tears, contrasts with the
passionate outcries of the other. At a particular point the argument is
described as falling before the attack of Simmias. A sort of despair is
introduced in the minds of the company. The effect of this is heightened
by the description of Phaedo, who has been the eye-witness of the scene,
and by the sympathy of his Phliasian auditors who are beginning to think
'that they too can never trust an argument again.' And the intense
interest of the company is communicated not only to the first auditors, but
to us who in a distant country read the narrative of their emotions after
more than two thousand years have passed away.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: "You started with a laty. That is evident. You shtarted for an
afternoon excursion--a picnic. A man of your temperament--he
would take a laty. She was not wiz you in your balloon when you
came down at Dornhof. No! Only her chacket! It is your affair.
Still, I am curious."
Bert reflected. "'Ow d'you know that?"
"I chuge by ze nature of your farious provisions. I cannot
account, Mr. Pooterage, for ze laty, what you haf done with her.
Nor can I tell why you should wear nature-sandals, nor why you
should wear such cheap plue clothes. These are outside my
instructions. Trifles, perhaps. Officially they are to be
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