| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: temporarily, and because of forces beyond any man's
control. He is consequently free with a freedom no other
great man has ever had. It is not so much what he says that
inspires confidence in him. It is this sensible freedom, this
obvious detachment. With his philosophy he cannot for a
moment believe that one man's mistake might ruin all. He is,
for himself at any rate, the exponent, not the cause, of the
events that will be for ever linked with his name.
THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF PUBLIC ECONOMY
February 20th.
To-day was an unlucky day. I felt tired, ill and hungry, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.
"We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or
punish. Hyde is gone to his account; and it only remains for us
to find the body of your master."
The far greater proportion of the building was occupied by
the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground storey and was
lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper
story at one end and looked upon the court. A corridor joined the
theatre to the door on the by-street; and with this the cabinet
communicated separately by a second flight of stairs. There were
besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar. All these they
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: represents the courageous man as neither a soothsayer, nor a physician, nor
in any other character, unless he means to say that he is a god. My
opinion is that he does not like honestly to confess that he is talking
nonsense, but that he shuffles up and down in order to conceal the
difficulty into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might have
practised a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to avoid the
appearance of inconsistency. And if we had been arguing in a court of law
there might have been reason in so doing; but why should a man deck himself
out with vain words at a meeting of friends such as this?
SOCRATES: I quite agree with you, Laches, that he should not. But perhaps
Nicias is serious, and not merely talking for the sake of talking. Let us
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