| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: from them and comes at last to no conclusion.
The definitions of temperance proceed in regular order from the popular to
the philosophical. The first two are simple enough and partially true,
like the first thoughts of an intelligent youth; the third, which is a real
contribution to ethical philosophy, is perverted by the ingenuity of
Socrates, and hardly rescued by an equal perversion on the part of Critias.
The remaining definitions have a higher aim, which is to introduce the
element of knowledge, and at last to unite good and truth in a single
science. But the time has not yet arrived for the realization of this
vision of metaphysical philosophy; and such a science when brought nearer
to us in the Philebus and the Republic will not be called by the name of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: sloop of war, the Greyhound, whereby they were so roughly handled
that Low was glad enough to slip away, leaving his consort and
her crew behind him, as a sop to the powers of law and order. And
lucky for them if no worse fate awaited them than to walk the
dreadful plank with a bandage around the blinded eyes and a rope
around the elbows. So the consort was taken, and the crew tried
and hanged in chains, and Low sailed off in as pretty a bit of
rage as ever a pirate fell into.
The end of this worthy is lost in the fogs of the past: some say
that he died of a yellow fever down in New Orleans; it was not at
the end of a hempen cord, more's the pity.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: prayers than usual, and adding a special fervor of noise
to their "Amens!" and other interjections--and that was all.
It was Theron's first love-feast in Octavius, and as the
big class-room in the church basement began to fill up,
and he noted how the men with ultra radical views and the
women clad in the most ostentatious drabs and grays were
crowding into the front seats, he felt his spirits sinking.
He had literally to force himself from sentence to sentence,
when the time came for him to rise and open the proceedings
with an exhortation. He had eagerly offered this function
to the Presiding Elder, the Rev. Aziel P. Larrabee,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
