| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: in good fettle for his spring running, and he ate alone because
all the Jungle People were away singing or fighting. It was a
perfect white night, as they call it. All green things seemed to
have made a month's growth since the morning. The branch that
was yellow-leaved the day before dripped sap when Mowgli broke
it. The mosses curled deep and warm over his feet, the young
grass had no cutting edges, and all the voices of the Jungle
boomed like one deep harp-string touched by the moon--the Moon
of New Talk, who splashed her light full on rock and pool,
slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a
million leaves. Forgetting his unhappiness, Mowgli sang aloud
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: this pity, let us take every possible care that young persons do not study
philosophy too early. For a young man is a sort of puppy who only plays
with an argument; and is reasoned into and out of his opinions every day;
he soon begins to believe nothing, and brings himself and philosophy into
discredit. A man of thirty does not run on in this way; he will argue and
not merely contradict, and adds new honour to philosophy by the sobriety of
his conduct. What time shall we allow for this second gymnastic training
of the soul?--say, twice the time required for the gymnastics of the body;
six, or perhaps five years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen
years let the student go down into the den, and command armies, and gain
experience of life. At fifty let him return to the end of all things, and
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: So snatched, will not exempt us from the pain
We are by doom to pay; rather, such acts
Of contumacy will provoke the Highest
To make death in us live: Then let us seek
Some safer resolution, which methinks
I have in view, calling to mind with heed
Part of our sentence, that thy seed shall bruise
The Serpent's head; piteous amends! unless
Be meant, whom I conjecture, our grand foe,
Satan; who, in the serpent, hath contrived
Against us this deceit: To crush his head
Paradise Lost |
