| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: from the woodside. They were so familiar that at length one
alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and pecked at
the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon my
shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I
felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I
should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels
also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped
upon my shoe, when that was the nearest way.
When the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the
end of winter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and
about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: or command.
Certainly, he said.
And will they be a class which is rarely found?
Yes, indeed.
Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and
pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation
which we did not mention--he must be exercised also in many kinds of
knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of
all, or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises.
Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by
the highest of all knowledge?
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: [Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. Paris. The palace.
[Enter the King, Gloucester, Bishop of Winchester, York,
Suffolk, Somerset, Warwick, Exeter: Vernon, Basset, and
others. To them with his soldiers, Talbot.]
TALBOT.
My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,
Hearing of your arrival in this realm,
I have awhile given truce unto my wars,
To do my duty to my sovereign:
In sign whereof, this arm, that hath reclaim'd
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