| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: under their thrall, that so long as he is in the heyday of health and
strong to labour, they compel him to fetch and carry and lay at their
feet the fruit of his toils, and to spend it on their own heart's
lusts; but as soon as he is seen to be incapable of further labour
through old age, they leave him to his gray hairs and misery, and turn
to seize on other victims.[21] Ah! Critobulus, against these must we
wage ceaseless war, for very freedom's sake, no less than if they were
armed warriors endeavouring to make us their slaves. Nay, foemen in
war, it must be granted, especially when of fair and noble type, have
many times ere now proved benefactors to those they have enslaved. By
dint of chastening, they have forced the vanquished to become better
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to
say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events.
In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of
things, manifest to him;--this, the piece of true knowledge, or
sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to
seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if
he could; saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and
drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the
vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of
mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" it is, in his
small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: to their mountain, where they thrust the prisoner into a secret cave
and chained him to the rocky wall so that he could not escape.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the Daemons, rubbing their hands together with cruel
glee. "What will the children do now? How they will cry and scold
and storm when they find there are no toys in their stockings and no
gifts on their Christmas trees! And what a lot of punishment they
will receive from their parents, and how they will flock to our Caves
of Selfishness, and Envy, and Hatred, and Malice! We have done a
mighty clever thing, we Daemons of the Caves!"
Now it so chanced that on this Christmas Eve the good Santa Claus had
taken with him in his sleigh Nuter the Ryl, Peter the Knook, Kilter
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
