| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: "Know ye not, then, that He is the Messiah?"
The priests stared at one another, and Vitellius demanded the meaning
of the word. His interpreter paused a moment before translating it.
Then he said that Messiah was the name to be given to one who was to
come, bringing the enjoyment of all blessings, and giving them
domination over all the peoples of the earth. Certain persons believed
that there were to be two Messiahs; one would be vanquished by Gog and
Magog, the demons of the North; but the other would exterminate the
Prince of Evil; and for centuries the coming of this Saviour of
mankind had been expected at any moment.
At this, the priests began to talk in low tones among themselves.
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: with Ozma and their friends in a reception room, talking over old
times, when the Princess said to her maid:
"Please go to my boudoir, Jellia, and get the white piglet I left on
the dressing-table. I want to play with it."
Jellia at once departed on the errand, and she was gone so long that
they had almost forgotten her mission when the green robed maiden
returned with a troubled face.
"The piglet is not there, your Highness," said she.
"Not there!" exclaimed Ozma. "Are you sure?"
"I have hunted in every part of the room," the maid replied.
"Was not the door closed?" asked the Princess.
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: attainable, when he might do the better. And this inferiority of a man to
himself is merely ignorance, as the superiority of a man to himself is
wisdom.
They all assented.
And is not ignorance the having a false opinion and being deceived about
important matters?
To this also they unanimously assented.
Then, I said, no man voluntarily pursues evil, or that which he thinks to
be evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is
compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when
he may have the less.
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