| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: it is my duty and yours to act on it," or, "It is false; and it is my
duty and yours to refuse to act on it." The difference is as great as
that between the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed. When you
repeat the Apostles' Creed you affirm that you believe certain things.
There you are clearly within your rights. When you repeat the
Athanasian Creed, you affirm that certain things are so, and that
anybody who doubts that they are so cannot be saved. And this is
simply a piece of impudence on your part, as you know nothing about it
except that as good men as you have never heard of your creed. The
apostolic attitude is a desire to convert others to our beliefs for
the sake of sympathy and light: the Athanasian attitude is a desire
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: heats which they ran over the course before the grand day. But
how, as knowing the difference equally with their riders, would
they exert their utmost strength at the time of the race itself!
And that to such an extremity that one or two of them died in the
stable when they came to be rubbed after the first heat.
Here I fancied myself in the Circus Maximus at Rome seeing the
ancient games and the racings of the chariots and horsemen, and in
this warmth of my imagination I pleased and diverted myself more
and in a more noble manner than I could possibly do in the crowds
of gentlemen at the weighing and starting-posts and at their coming
in, or at their meetings at the coffee-houses and gaming-tables
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: a wandering circus came to the island and my Jacobus became
suddenly infatuated with one of the lady-riders. What made it
worse was that he was married. He had not even the grace to
conceal his passion. It must have been strong indeed to carry away
such a large placid creature. His behaviour was perfectly
scandalous. He followed that woman to the Cape, and apparently
travelled at the tail of that beastly circus to other parts of the
world, in a most degrading position. The woman soon ceased to care
for him, and treated him worse than a dog. Most extraordinary
stories of moral degradation were reaching the island at that time.
He had not the strength of mind to shake himself free. . . .
'Twixt Land & Sea |
