| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: spite of his own considerate distance and the cries of the
distressed assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a man of
word than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the
bees for text. "THEY ARE INDEED WONDERFUL CREATURES, MEM," he said
once. "THEY JUST MIND ME O' WHAT THE QUEEN OF SHEBA SAID TO
SOLOMON - AND I THINK SHE SAID IT WI' A SIGH, - 'THE HALF OF IT
HATH NOT BEEN TOLD UNTO ME.'"
As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old
Covenanters, of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth
was full of sacred quotations; it was the book that he had studied
most and thought upon most deeply. To many people in his station
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God.' Plato does not say
that God will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but he
indirectly implies that the evils of this life will be corrected in
another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at present,
Plato here, as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory or place of
education for mankind in general, and for a very few a Tartarus or hell.
The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the revelation, but rather,
like all similar descriptions, whether in the Bible or Plato, the veil of
another life. For no visible thing can reveal the invisible. Of this
Plato, unlike some commentators on Scripture, is fully aware. Neither will
he dogmatize about the manner in which we are 'born again' (Republic).
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tara of Helium had just reached the gate in the outer wall.
Without warning it swung open toward her. She saw that for a
moment it would hide her from those within and in that moment she
turned and ran, keeping close to the wall, until, passing out of
sight beyond the curve of the structure, she came to the opposite
side of the enclosure. Here, panting from her exertion and from
the excitement of her narrow escape, she threw herself among some
tall weeds that grew close to the foot of the wall. There she lay
trembling for some time, not even daring to raise her head and
look about. Never before had Tara of Helium felt the paralyzing
effects of terror. She was shocked and angry at herself, that
The Chessmen of Mars |
