| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: also; for the part can never be well unless the whole is well.' For all
good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates, as he
declared, in the soul, and overflows from thence, as if from the head into
the eyes. And therefore if the head and body are to be well, you must
begin by curing the soul; that is the first thing. And the cure, my dear
youth, has to be effected by the use of certain charms, and these charms
are fair words; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where
temperance is, there health is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but
to the whole body. And he who taught me the cure and the charm at the same
time added a special direction: 'Let no one,' he said, 'persuade you to
cure the head, until he has first given you his soul to be cured by the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: earth, with the dry bushes on it. The ants ran up and down in the red
sand, and the heat beat fiercely. I looked up through the thin branches of
the tree at the blue sky overhead. I stretched myself, and I mused over
the dream I had had. And I fell asleep again, with my head on my saddle.
And in the fierce heat I had another dream.
I saw a desert and I saw a woman coming out of it. And she came to the
bank of a dark river; and the bank was steep and high. (The banks of an
African river are sometimes a hundred feet high, and consist of deep
shifting sands, through which in the course of ages the river has worn its
gigantic bed.) And on it an old man met her, who had a long white beard;
and a stick that curled was in his hand, and on it was written Reason. And
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question
to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing. Hitherto, whenever
there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had
never lacked advisers, nor shown himself averse to be guided by
their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree
of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would lead him to
consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well
acquainted with this amiable weakness, no individual among his
parishioners chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly
remonstrance. There was a feeling of dread, neither plainly
confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the
Twice Told Tales |
