| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: philosophy common to all races, ranks, and intellects, embracing the
whole phenomena of humanity, and not an arbitrarily small portion of
them, and capable of being understood and appreciated by every human
being from the highest to the lowest. And when you hear of a system of
reserve in teaching, a disciplina arcani, of an esoteric and exoteric,
an inner and outer school, among these men, you must not be frightened
at the words, as if they spoke of priestcraft, or an intellectual
aristocracy, who kept the kernel of the nut for themselves, and gave the
husks to the mob. It was not so with the Christian schools; it was so
with the Heathen ones. The Heathens were content that the mob, the
herd, should have the husks. Their avowed intention and wish was to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: man, than the second-hand and cowardly correctness of all the
thousand.
As for the "triumphs of science," let us honour, with astonishment
and awe, the genius of those who invented them; but let us remember
that the things themselves are as a gun or a sword, with which we
can kill our enemy, but with which also our enemy can kill us. Like
all outward and material things, they are equally fit for good and
for evil. In England here--they have been as yet, as far as I can
see, nothing but blessings: but I have my very serious doubts
whether they are likely to be blessings to the whole human race, for
many an age to come. I can conceive them--may God avert the omen!--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: merging inland into a vista of purple tints and
flowing lines closing the view.
In this valley down to Brenzett and Colebrook
and up to Darnford, the market town fourteen
miles away, lies the practice of my friend Kennedy.
He had begun life as surgeon in the Navy, and
afterwards had been the companion of a famous
traveller, in the days when there were continents
with unexplored interiors. His papers on the
fauna and flora made him known to scientific socie-
ties. And now he had come to a country practice
Amy Foster |
