| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: should be attributed to his vices and carelessness. Other have
done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the government
physicians, and so forth, but never with the Catholic idea of
meriting eternal life. - Yours, etc.,
"C. M. HYDE" (1)
(1) From the Sydney PRESBYTERIAN, October 26, 1889.
To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at the
outset on my private knowledge of the signatory and his sect. It
may offend others; scarcely you, who have been so busy to collect,
so bold to publish, gossip on your rivals. And this is perhaps the
moment when I may best explain to you the character of what you are
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: until one day, when I mildly asked him to tie up a fallen creeper--
and after he bought the revolver my tones in addressing him
were of the mildest, and I quite left off reading to him aloud--
he turned round, looked me straight in the face for the first time
since he has been here, and said, "Do I look like Graf X- --(a great
local celebrity), or like a monkey?" After which there was nothing
for it but to get him into an asylum as expeditiously as possible.
There was no gardener to be had in his place, and I have only
just succeeded in getting one; so that what with the drought,
and the <46> neglect, and the gardener's madness, and my blunders,
the garden is in a sad condition; but even in a sad condition it
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: publication. I have never contemplated anything higher than the
reformation of my own opinions, and basing them on a foundation wholly my
own. And although my own satisfaction with my work has led me to present
here a draft of it, I do not by any means therefore recommend to every one
else to make a similar attempt. Those whom God has endowed with a larger
measure of genius will entertain, perhaps, designs still more exalted; but
for the many I am much afraid lest even the present undertaking be more
than they can safely venture to imitate. The single design to strip one's
self of all past beliefs is one that ought not to be taken by every one.
The majority of men is composed of two classes, for neither of which would
this be at all a befitting resolution: in the first place, of those who
Reason Discourse |
