| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: devotion, simple natural piety, boyish cheerfulness, tender and
manly sentiment in the old sailor fashion, were in him inherent and
inextinguishable either by age, suffering, or injustice. He
looked, as he was, every inch a gentleman; he must have been
everywhere notable, even among handsome men, both for his face and
his gallant bearing; not so much that of a sailor, you would have
said, as like one of those gentle and graceful soldiers that, to
this day, are the most pleasant of Englishmen to see. But though
he was in these ways noble, the dunce scholar of Northiam was to
the end no genius. Upon all points that a man must understand to
be a gentleman, to be upright, gallant, affectionate and dead to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: ways--to be true and considerate of others."
"Why, in that case, it's lucky for him he drank the Water of
Oblivion," said Dorothy.
"It is indeed," agreed the Wizard. "But the remarkable thing, to
me, is how such a young boy ever learned the secret of the Magic Word
of Transformation. Perhaps his companion, who is at present this
walnut, was the real magician, although I seem to remember that it was
this boy in the beast's form who whispered the Magic Word into the
hollow tree, where I overheard it."
"Well, we will soon know who the other is," suggested Ozma. "He may
prove to be another Munchkin boy."
The Magic of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the
defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to
bury himself. Nevertheless this points to an important distinction
between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have
designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized
people an institution, in which the life of the individual is to a
great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the
race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this advantage is at
present obtained, and to suggest that we may possibly so live as to
secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage.
What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have always with you, or
Walden |
