| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: person, which is tended and taken care of by another; while you, Lysis, are
master of nobody, and can do nothing?
Why, he said, Socrates, the reason is that I am not of age.
I doubt whether that is the real reason, I said; for I should imagine that
your father Democrates, and your mother, do permit you to do many things
already, and do not wait until you are of age: for example, if they want
anything read or written, you, I presume, would be the first person in the
house who is summoned by them.
Very true.
And you would be allowed to write or read the letters in any order which
you please, or to take up the lyre and tune the notes, and play with the
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: looked sublime.
"Her first words had crushed du Bruel. She looked at us both, with
that penetrating, impenetrable cat-like glance which only actresses
and great ladies can use. Then she held out her hand to her husband.
" 'Poor dear, you had scarcely gone before I blamed myself a thousand
times over. It seemed to me that I had been horribly ungrateful. I
told myself that I had been unkind.--Was I very unkind?' she asked,
turning to me.--'Why not receive your friends? Is it not your house?
Do you want to know the reason of it all? Well, I was afraid that I
was not loved; and indeed I was half-way between repentance and the
shame of going back. I read the newspapers, and saw that there was a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: subvert the principle; but could we not, in an age that prides
itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect this essential
portion of the social machinery?
If the author has preserved the old-fashioned style of address To
the Reader before a work wherein he endeavors to represent all
literary forms, it is for the purpose of making a remark that
applies to several of the Studies, and very specially to this.
Every one of his compositions has been based upon ideas more or
less novel, which, as it seemed to him, needed literary
expression; he can claim priority for certain forms and for
certain ideas which have since passed into the domain of
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