| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: Banou. In the tale of Baba Abdallah, it is an ointment rubbed
on the eyelid which reveals at a single glance all the
treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth
The ancient Romans also had their rock-breaking plant, called
Saxifraga, or "sassafras." And the further we penetrate into
this charmed circle of traditions the more evident does it
appear that the power of cleaving rocks or shattering hard
substances enters, as a primitive element, into the conception
of these treasure-showing talismans. Mr. Baring-Gould has
given an excellent account of the rabbinical legends
concerning the wonderful schamir, by the aid of which Solomon
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: another in the souls of bad men?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And yet they must all be akin?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Then we shall be right in calling vice a discord and disease of
the soul?
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And when things having motion, and aiming at an appointed mark,
continually miss their aim and glance aside, shall we say that this is the
effect of symmetry among them, or of the want of symmetry?
THEAETETUS: Clearly of the want of symmetry.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: worked and worked--they all did. That's all there was in their
life--just work. Why, when he was your age, his father was at war
and papa and Grandmother Wade had to do everything. He did a
man's share at fourteen and by the time he was fifteen, he ran
this whole farm. Work has gotten to be a habit with him and it's
made him different from a great many people. But he thinks that
is why he's gone ahead and so he's trying to raise you the same
way. If he really didn't care about you, Billy, it wouldn't
bother him what you did."
In the silence that fell they could hear old Molly bellowing with
pathetic monotony for her calf that had been taken from her.
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