The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: sacrifice (with whatever revolting details) should have been
cultivated by nine-tenths of the human race over the globe
out of sheer perversity and without some reason which at
any rate to the perpetrators themselves appeared commanding
and convincing. To-day [1918] we are witnessing
in the Great European War a carnival of human slaughter
which in magnitude and barbarity eclipses in one stroke
all the accumulated ceremonial sacrifices of historical
ages; and when we ask the why and wherefore of this
horrid spectacle we are told, apparently in all sincerity, and
by both the parties engaged, of the noble objects and commanding
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: his wrist a spotted snake; he came with downcast eyes to
Cheiron, and whispered how he had watched the snake cast its
old skin, and grow young again before his eyes, and how he
had gone down into a village in the vale, and cured a dying
man with a herb which he had seen a sick goat eat.
And Cheiron smiled, and said, 'To each Athene and Apollo give
some gift, and each is worthy in his place; but to this child
they have given an honour beyond all honours, to cure while
others kill.'
Then the lads brought in wood, and split it, and lighted a
blazing fire; and others skinned the deer and quartered them,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: under the Valois, and a terrible marshal whom they made a duke in the
time of Henri IV."
Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of Modeste to dream of
her, and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were
poor, if she had a noble soul he would like to make her Madame de La
Briere; and so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence.
Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try to
weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of a
civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the
coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them
twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes,
Modeste Mignon |