| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Unchecked, and of her roving is no end;
Till warned, or by experience taught, she learn,
That, not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle; but, to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom: What is more, is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence:
And renders us, in things that most concern,
Unpractised, unprepared, and still to seek.
Therefore from this high pitch let us descend
A lower flight, and speak of things at hand
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: his walk, when he halted again. The courtyard of the house led back
through a flagged walk to the park-like garden that surrounded it
on the sides and rear. Down this walk came a young woman. She came
so quickly that one might almost call it running. She was evidently
excited about something. Muller imagined what this something might
be, and he remained to hear what she had to say. He was not
mistaken. The woman, it was Mrs. Schmiedler, the gardener's wife,
began her story at once. "Haven't you heard yet?" she said
breathlessly. "No, you can't have heard it yet or you wouldn't
stand there so quietly, Mrs. Bernauer."
"What's the matter?" asked the woman whom Muller took to be the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: recognized crudely the differences between one age and another,
but it had a way of looking down upon all ages except the
present. This intolerance shown toward the past was indeed a
measure of the crudeness with which it was comprehended. Because
Mohammed, if he had done what he did, in France and in the
eighteenth century, would have been called an impostor, Voltaire,
the great mouthpiece and representative of this style of
criticism, portrays him as an impostor. Recognition of the fact
that different ages are different, together with inability to
perceive that they ought to be different, that their differences
lie in the nature of progress,--this was the prominent
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
