| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: had gone to her appointment preparing for happiness which it
had not afforded. Instead of finding herself improved
in acquaintance with Miss Tilney, from the intercourse of
the day, she seemed hardly so intimate with her as before;
instead of seeing Henry Tilney to greater advantage
than ever, in the ease of a family party, he had never said
so little, nor been so little agreeable; and, in spite
of their father's great civilities to her--in spite
of his thanks, invitations, and compliments--it had been
a release to get away from him. It puzzled her to account
for all this. It could not be General Tilney's fault.
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: This was all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite
incomparable.
I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles
Lamb and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.
Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet
lavender. It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods.
It tastes of simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of
new verjuice in a new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to
give Piscator the next time he came that way. Its music plays the
tune of A CONTENTED HEART over and over again without dulness, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: phenomena. Still he affirms the existence of such ideas; and this is the
position which is now in turn submitted to the criticisms of Parmenides.
To appreciate truly the character of these criticisms, we must remember the
place held by Parmenides in the history of Greek philosophy. He is the
founder of idealism, and also of dialectic, or, in modern phraseology, of
metaphysics and logic (Theaet., Soph.). Like Plato, he is struggling after
something wider and deeper than satisfied the contemporary Pythagoreans.
And Plato with a true instinct recognizes him as his spiritual father, whom
he 'revered and honoured more than all other philosophers together.' He
may be supposed to have thought more than he said, or was able to express.
And, although he could not, as a matter of fact, have criticized the ideas
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