| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: not already admitted many times over that such is the duty of a public man?
Nay, we have surely said so; for if you will not answer for yourself I must
answer for you. But if this is what the good man ought to effect for the
benefit of his own state, allow me to recall to you the names of those whom
you were just now mentioning, Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and
Themistocles, and ask whether you still think that they were good citizens.
CALLICLES: I do.
SOCRATES: But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have made
the citizens better instead of worse?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: Now about Katya; she comes to see me every day towards evening,
and of course neither the neighbours nor our acquaintances can
avoid noticing it. She comes in for a minute and carries me off
for a drive with her. She has her own horse and a new chaise
bought this summer. Altogether she lives in an expensive style;
she has taken a big detached villa with a large garden, and has
taken all her town retinue with her -- two maids, a coachman . .
. I often ask her:
"Katya, what will you live on when you have spent your father's
money?"
"Then we shall see," she answers.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: little nurse had instructed me. This man, who was old and
dim-sighted, put on his spectacles to behold me better; at which
I could not forbear laughing very heartily, for his eyes appeared
like the full moon shining into a chamber at two windows. Our
people, who discovered the cause of my mirth, bore me company in
laughing, at which the old fellow was fool enough to be angry and
out of countenance. He had the character of a great miser; and,
to my misfortune, he well deserved it, by the cursed advice he
gave my master, to show me as a sight upon a market-day in the
next town, which was half an hour's riding, about two-and-twenty
miles from our house. I guessed there was some mischief when I
Gulliver's Travels |
