| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: OF SIMPLER NATIONS ARE STILL THE SPORTS OF THE MORE
ARTIFICIAL."
When he had enough of that kind of life, he showed the same
simplicity in giving it up as in beginning it. There are
some who could have done the one, but, vanity forbidding, not
the other; and that is perhaps the story of the hermits; but
Thoreau made no fetish of his own example, and did what he
wanted squarely. And five years is long enough for an
experiment and to prove the success of transcendental
Yankeeism. It is not his frugality which is worthy of note;
for, to begin with, that was inborn, and therefore inimitable
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: famous art of rhetoric which Thrasymachus and others teach and practise?
Skilful speakers they are, and impart their skill to any who is willing to
make kings of them and to bring gifts to them.
PHAEDRUS: Yes, they are royal men; but their art is not the same with the
art of those whom you call, and rightly, in my opinion, dialecticians:--
Still we are in the dark about rhetoric.
SOCRATES: What do you mean? The remains of it, if there be anything
remaining which can be brought under rules of art, must be a fine thing;
and, at any rate, is not to be despised by you and me. But how much is
left?
PHAEDRUS: There is a great deal surely to be found in books of rhetoric?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then
he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled;
but every time he come to himself he went to sucking
at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and
so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to
come, and so I judged he was all right; but I'd
druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky.
Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then
the swelling was all gone and he was around again. I
made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a
snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
