| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: it is like going into a garden of lilies out of some, narrow and
dark house.
And to me, the pleasure is doubled by the reflection that it is
extremely probable that we have the actual terms, the IPSISSIMA
VERBA, used by Christ. It was always supposed that Christ talked
in Aramaic. Even Renan thought so. But now we know that the
Galilean peasants, like the Irish peasants of our own day, were
bilingual, and that Greek was the ordinary language of intercourse
all over Palestine, as indeed all over the Eastern world. I never
liked the idea that we knew of Christ's own words only through a
translation of a translation. It is a delight to me to think that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: I told you, Allan, when the Kaffirs were on us yonder, that it might be
better to die; and see, my heart spoke truly."
"Is there no hope?" I gasped. "Will he really separate us and take you
away into the wilderness?"
"Certainly, nothing can turn him. Yet, Allan, there is this hope. In
two years, if I live, I shall be of full age, and can marry whom I will;
and this I swear, that I will marry none but you, no, not even if you
were to die to-morrow."
"I bless you for those words," I said.
"Why?" she asked simply. "What others could I speak? Would you have me
do outrage to my own heart and go through life faithless and ashamed?"
 Marie |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: "No; 'cause you're not a crow," she returned. "He has the loveliest
smile you ever saw--only it's painted on and he can't help it."
Luncheon being over they started again upon their journey, the shaggy
man, Dorothy and Button-Bright walking soberly along, side by side, and
the Rainbow's Daughter dancing merrily before them.
Sometimes she darted along the road so swiftly that she was nearly out
of sight, then she came tripping back to greet them with her silvery
laughter. But once she came back more sedately, to say:
"There's a city a little way off."
"I 'spected that," returned Dorothy; "for the fox-people warned us
there was one on this road. It's filled with stupid beasts of some
 The Road to Oz |