| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: whereby good men become wise, he must also make everything else good to me.
Not that he concerns himself at all with these other things, but he has
converted my ignorance into wisdom. If, for example, a person teach me
grammar or music, he will at the same time teach me all that relates to
grammar or music, and so when he makes me good, he makes things good to me.
Prodicus did not altogether agree: still he consented to what was said.
And do you think, said the youth, that doing good things is like building a
house,--the work of human agency; or do things remain what they were at
first, good or bad, for all time?
Prodicus began to suspect, I fancy, the direction which the argument was
likely to take, and did not wish to be put down by a mere stripling before
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: which therefore becomes ridiculous by a slight
misapplication, or unnecessary repetition.
The general reproach with which ignorance
revenges the superciliousness of learning, is that of
pedantry; a censure which every man incurs, who
has at any time the misfortune to talk to those who
cannot understand him, and by which the modest
and timorous are sometimes frighted from the display
of their acquisitions, and the exertion of their
powers.
The name of a pedant is so formidable to young
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: "Marie Lambrequin has come to life!" cried Marche-a-Terre, proclaiming
by his manner that all other interests were of no account beside this
great piece of news.
"I'm not surprised," said Pille-Miche, "he took the sacrament so
often; the good God belonged to him."
"Ha! ha!" observed Mene-a-Bien, "that didn't stand him in anything at
his death. He hadn't received absolution before the affair at La
Pelerine. He had cheapened Goguelu's daughter, and was living in
mortal sin. The Abbe Gudin said he'd have to roam round two months as
a ghost before he could come to life. We saw him pass us,--he was
pale, he was cold, he was thin, he smelt of the cemetery."
The Chouans |
