| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: which proved that they had passed beyond the influence of the magical
Valley of Voe.
"Why, we can see each other again!" cried one, joyfully.
"Yes," sighed Eureka; "and I also can see you again, and the sight
makes me dreadfully hungry. Please, Mr. Wizard, may I eat just one of
the fat little piglets? You'd never miss ONE of them, I'm sure!"
"What a horrid, savage beast!" exclaimed a piglet; "and after we've
been such good friends, too, and played with one another!"
"When I'm not hungry, I love to play with you all," said the kitten,
demurely; "but when my stomach is empty it seems that nothing would
fill it so nicely as a fat piglet."
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: said Socrates, or you would never have gone so far about to hide the
purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an
ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the way at the
end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion
is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only
ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has
been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to set us at variance.
I believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that his
intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide us; but
he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on the couch next
to you.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates, I shall be ready to hold office, if you allow
and advise that I should, but not if you think otherwise. I went to the
council chamber because I heard that the Council was about to choose some
one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is to be a
public funeral?
SOCRATES: Yes, I know. And whom did they choose?
MENEXENUS: No one; they delayed the election until tomorrow, but I believe
that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.
SOCRATES: O Menexenus! Death in battle is certainly in many respects a
noble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although he may
have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise man who
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