| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: Christians than between the theory and practice of the Greeks and Romans;
the ideal is more above us, and the aspiration after good has often lent a
strange power to evil. And sometimes, as at the Reformation, or French
Revolution, when the upper classes of a so-called Christian country have
become corrupted by priestcraft, by casuistry, by licentiousness, by
despotism, the lower have risen up and re-asserted the natural sense of
religion and right.
We may further remark that our moral ideas, as the world grows older,
perhaps as we grow older ourselves, unless they have been undermined in us
by false philosophy or the practice of mental analysis, or infected by the
corruption of society or by some moral disorder in the individual, are
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Sylvie kissed it, but no result followed.
"Rub it the wrong way," was Bruno's next suggestion.
"Which is the wrong way?", Sylvie most reasonably enquired.
The obvious plan was to try both ways.
Rubbing from left to right had no visible effect whatever.
From right to left-- "Oh, stop, Sylvie!" Bruno cried in sudden alarm.
"Whatever is going to happen?"
For a number of trees, on the neighbouring hillside, were moving slowly
upwards, in solemn procession: while a mild little brook, that had been
rippling at our feet a moment before, began to swell, and foam,
and hiss, and bubble, in a truly alarming fashion.
Sylvie and Bruno |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Phantoms of air, and necromantic arts
That crushed the weak and awed the stoutest hearts,--
These are our theme to-night; and vaguely here,
Through the dim mists that crowd the atmosphere,
We draw the outlines of weird figures cast
In shadow on the background of the Past,
Who would believe that in the quiet town
Of Salem, and, amid the woods that crown
The neighboring hillsides, and the sunny farms
That fold it safe in their paternal arms,--
Who would believe that in those peaceful streets,
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