| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: best mode of being buried, the comparative merits of
churchyards, together with divers hints on the subject of
patent-iron coffins. I have heard the question discussed in all
its bearings as to the legality of prohibiting the latter on
account of their durability. The feuds occasioned by these
societies have happily died of late; but they were for a long
time prevailing themes of controversy, the people of Little
Britain being extremely solicitous of funereal honors and of
lying comfortably in their graves.
Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of quite a
different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good-
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: ordinary mortals in hardihood, not in effeminacy. Yet there were
things in which he was not ashamed to take the lion's share, as, for
example, the sun's heat in summer, or winter's cold. Did occasion ever
demaned of his army moil and toil, he laboured beyond all others as a
thing of course, believing that such ensamples are a consolation to
the rank and file. Or, to put the patter compendiously, Agesilaus
exulted in hard work: indolence he utterly repudiated.
[1] See "Pol. Lac." xv. 4. See J. J. Hartman, "An. Xen." 257.
[2] See Hom. "Il." ii. 24, {ou khro pannukhion eudein boulephoron
andra}, "to sleep all night through beseemeth not one that is a
counsellor."--W. Leaf.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers:
But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the warbling birds,
But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek their food:
But Thel delights in these no more because I fade away
And all shall say, without a use this shining women liv'd,
Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.
The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne and answerd thus.
Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing, every thing that lives.
Lives not alone nor or itself: fear not and I will call,
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
Poems of William Blake |
