| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: all over and glancing furtively about, like a criminal who fancies that
the accuser is already at hand.
Should he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble
was too haunting, too afflicting for that. He must have somebody
to mourn with. He would carry his despair to Roxy.
He had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing
was not uncommon, and they had made no impression upon him.
He went out at the back door, and turned westward. He passed
Wilson's house and proceeded along the lane, and presently saw
several figures approaching Wilson's place through the vacant lots.
These were the duelists returning from the fight; he thought
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: broken our rash necks but for the vine. This was a thick-leaved,
wide-spreading thing, a little like Amphelopsis.
"It's not QUITE vertical here, you see," said Terry, full of pride
and enthusiasm. "This thing never would hold our direct weight,
but I think if we sort of slide down on it, one at a time, sticking
in with hands and feet, we'll reach that next ledge alive."
"As we do not wish to get up our rope again--and can't
comfortably stay here--I approve," said Jeff solemnly.
Terry slid down first--said he'd show us how a Christian
meets his death. Luck was with us. We had put on the thickest
of those intermediate suits, leaving our tunics behind, and made
Herland |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: draw a man off from the knowledge of himself. There is a latent criticism,
and also a poetical sense in Plato, which enable him to discard them, and
yet in another way to make use of poetry and mythology as a vehicle of
thought and feeling. What would he have said of the discovery of Christian
doctrines in these old Greek legends? While acknowledging that such
interpretations are 'very nice,' would he not have remarked that they are
found in all sacred literatures? They cannot be tested by any criterion of
truth, or used to establish any truth; they add nothing to the sum of human
knowledge; they are--what we please, and if employed as 'peacemakers'
between the new and old are liable to serious misconstruction, as he
elsewhere remarks (Republic). And therefore he would have 'bid Farewell to
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