| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: To put the by-pass'd perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wills more keen.
'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof,
To be forbod the sweets that seems so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though reason weep, and cry It is thy last.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: just as soon have abused the old village church at home
for not being a cathedral.
"And for me there was also my youth to make me pa-
tient. There was all the East before me, and all life, and
the thought that I had been tried in that ship and had
come out pretty well. And I thought of men of old who,
centuries ago, went that road in ships that sailed no
better, to the land of palms, and spices, and yellow sands,
and of brown nations ruled by kings more cruel than
Nero the Roman and more splendid than Solomon the
Jew. The old bark lumbered on, heavy with her age
Youth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: principle is to assert the inviolability of the law, which, though not the
best thing possible, is best for the imperfect condition of man.
I will explain my meaning by an illustration:--Suppose that mankind,
indignant at the rogueries and caprices of physicians and pilots, call
together an assembly, in which all who like may speak, the skilled as well
as the unskilled, and that in their assembly they make decrees for
regulating the practice of navigation and medicine which are to be binding
on these professions for all time. Suppose that they elect annually by
vote or lot those to whom authority in either department is to be
delegated. And let us further imagine, that when the term of their
magistracy has expired, the magistrates appointed by them are summoned
Statesman |
