| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: they successively became possessed of a civilization which originally
was not the property of any one of them. In the eagerness they all
evinced in purloining what was not theirs, and in the perfect
content with which they then proceeded to enjoy what they had taken,
they remind us forcibly of that happy-go-lucky class in the
community which prefers to live on questionable loans rather than
work itself for a living. Like those same individuals, whatever
interest the Far Eastern people may succeed in raising now, Nature
will in the end make them pay dearly for their lack of principal.
The Far Eastern civilization resembles, in fact, more a mechanical
mixture of social elements than a well differentiated chemical
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: But the real meaning of the saying, as I imagine, is, that the good are
like one another, and friends to one another; and that the bad, as is often
said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves; for
they are passionate and restless, and anything which is at variance and
enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other
thing. Do you not agree?
Yes, I do.
Then, my friend, those who say that the like is friendly to the like mean
to intimate, if I rightly apprehend them, that the good only is the friend
of the good, and of him only; but that the evil never attains to any real
friendship, either with good or evil. Do you agree?
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: to listen.
"No, not now," said the girl. "Not here, I can't."
"But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?" asked the
boy. "Why does she come here at all--who wants her? Why doesn't she keep
her silly old mug at home?"
"It's her fu-ur which is so funny," giggled the girl. "It's exactly like a
fried whiting."
"Ah, be off with you!" said the boy in an angry whisper. Then: "Tell me,
ma petite chere--"
"No, not here," said the girl. "Not yet."
...
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