| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: back from the nearer to the more distant, from particulars to generalities,
from the earth to the stars. He lifts up his eyes to the heavens and seeks
to guide by their motions his erring footsteps. But we neither appreciate
the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected, nor have the ideas
which fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon us. For he is
hanging between matter and mind; he is under the dominion at the same time
both of sense and of abstractions; his impressions are taken almost at
random from the outside of nature; he sees the light, but not the objects
which are revealed by the light; and he brings into juxtaposition things
which to us appear wide as the poles asunder, because he finds nothing
between them. He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: the lot for a plug of tobacco," he added, sneering.
I suppose it was the smile stuck in my memory, for I spoke back
sharp. "She doesn't look that sort," I cried.
"I don't know that she is," said Case. "I believe she's as right
as the mail. Keeps to herself, don't go round with the gang, and
that. O no, don't you misunderstand me - Uma's on the square." He
spoke eager, I thought, and that surprised and pleased me.
"Indeed," he went on, "I shouldn't make so sure of getting her,
only she cottoned to the cut of your jib. All you have to do is to
keep dark and let me work the mother my own way; and I'll bring the
girl round to the captain's for the marriage."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: thought beyond the enjoyment of a good time. As certain, also,
of their own poets have said:--
"Man is fire and woman is tow,
And the devil he comes and begins to blow."
In America the tow is soaked in a solution that makes it
fire-proof, in absolute liberty and large knowledge;
consequently, accidents do not exceed the regular percentage
arranged by the devil for each class and climate under the skies.
But the freedom of the young girl has its draw-backs. She is--I
say it with all reluctance--irreverent, from her forty-dollar
bonnet to the buckles in her eighteen-dollar shoes. She talks
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