| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the Jungle, at right
angles to Buldeo's path, till, parting the undergrowth, he saw
the old man, his musket on his shoulder, running up the trail
of overnight at a dog-trot.
You will remember that Mowgli had left the village with the
heavy weight of Shere Khan's raw hide on his shoulders, while
Akela and Gray Brother trotted behind, so that the triple trail
was very clearly marked. Presently Buldeo came to where Akela,
as you know, had gone back and mixed it all up. Then he sat
down, and coughed and grunted, and made little casts round and
about into the Jungle to pick it up again, and, all the time he
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: art; his great memory contrasts with his inability to follow the steps of
the argument. And in his highest moments of inspiration he has an eye to
his own gains.
The old quarrel between philosophy and poetry, which in the Republic leads
to their final separation, is already working in the mind of Plato, and is
embodied by him in the contrast between Socrates and Ion. Yet here, as in
the Republic, Socrates shows a sympathy with the poetic nature. Also, the
manner in which Ion is affected by his own recitations affords a lively
illustration of the power which, in the Republic, Socrates attributes to
dramatic performances over the mind of the performer. His allusion to his
embellishments of Homer, in which he declares himself to have surpassed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and if I be dead, as likely I shall be ere the further
moon has circled Barsoom another twelve times, remember
that I listened and that I--smiled."
It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to
explain the more positive became her denials of my request,
and, so, in very hopelessness, I desisted.
Day had now given away to night and as we wandered
along the great avenue lighted by the two moons of
Barsoom, and with Earth looking down upon us out of her
luminous green eye, it seemed that we were alone in the
universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so.
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