| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: you exhausted it when you came down here? It seems to me in our
time almost wholly neglected, and something should surely be done
to restore its ruined credit. It's the course to which the artist
himself at every step, and with such pathetic confidence, refers
us. This last book of Mr. Paraday's is full of revelations."
"Revelations?" panted Mr. Morrow, whom I had forced again into his
chair.
"The only kind that count. It tells you with a perfection that
seems to me quite final all the author thinks, for instance, about
the advent of the 'larger latitude.'"
"Where does it do that?" asked Mr. Morrow, who had picked up the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Sing the fell tidings back to that thrice unhappy ship! --
Sing to the western flame,
Sing to the dying foam,
A dirge for the sundered years and a dirge for the years to be!
Better his end had been as the end of a cloudless day,
Bright, by the word of Zeus, with a golden star,
Wrought of a golden fame, and flung to the central sky,
To gleam on a stormless tomb for evermore: --
Whether or not there fell
To the touch of an alien hand
The sheen of his purple robe and the shine of his diadem,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: once for all); but, by means of painful repentance, hot tears,
toils and sweats, there is a purifying and pardoning of our
offences through the tender mercy of our God. For the fount of
tears is also called baptism, according to the grace of the
Master, but it needeth labour and time; and many hath it saved
after many a fall; because there is no sin too great for the
clemency of God, if we be quick to repent, and purge the shame of
our offences, and death overtake us not, and depart us not from
this life still defiled; for in the grave there is no confession
nor repentance. But as long as we are `among the living, while
the foundation of our true faith continueth unshattered, even if
|
