| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: of the other arts. As he does not know all of them, which of them will he
know?
ION: He will know what a man and what a woman ought to say, and what a
freeman and what a slave ought to say, and what a ruler and what a subject.
SOCRATES: Do you mean that a rhapsode will know better than the pilot what
the ruler of a sea-tossed vessel ought to say?
ION: No; the pilot will know best.
SOCRATES: Or will the rhapsode know better than the physician what the
ruler of a sick man ought to say?
ION: He will not.
SOCRATES: But he will know what a slave ought to say?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: had happened to a certain Christian gentleman almost at that very
time, the strangest case that had ever occurred even there, where
astonishing and marvellous things are happening every instant. In
short, he ended by saying that what could and ought to be done was
to give the money intended for the ransom of one of us Christians to
him, so that he might with it buy a vessel there in Algiers under
the pretence of becoming a merchant and trader at Tetuan and along the
coast; and when master of the vessel, it would be easy for him to
hit on some way of getting us all out of the bano and putting us on
board; especially if the Moorish lady gave, as she said, money
enough to ransom all, because once free it would be the easiest
Don Quixote |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: accustomed to shuffle the cards for the great game of politics, had
adopted her in a maternal fashion. Thus, to any man of high ambitions,
Madame d'Espard was preparing a covert but very real influence to
follow the public and frivolous ascendency she now owed to fashion.
Her drawing-room was acquiring political individuality: "What do they
say at Madame d'Espard's?" "Are they against the measure in Madame
d'Espard's drawing-room?" were questions repeated by a sufficient
number of simpletons to give the flock of the faithful who surrounded
her the importance of a coterie. A few damaged politicians whose
wounds she had bound up, and whom she flattered, pronounced her as
capable in diplomacy as the wife of the Russian ambassador to London.
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