| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or
public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of
human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake
themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the
politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of
philosophy. For, as Euripides says,
'Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest
portion of the day to that in which he most excels,' (Antiope, fragm. 20
(Dindorf).)
but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and
praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the
two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like
Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the
will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies
have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself
on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me.
But where is the use? I don't care for striking: I can't take the
trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring
the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is
far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of enjoying their
destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.
Wuthering Heights |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: sake, let ME get a glass of wine for you." "Do you know where?"
said the old man, with an expression in his face John could not
understand. "No, Sir; you know I have been rather a stranger here,
Sir." "Take this key," said old Melmoth, after a violent spasm;
"take this key, there is wine in that closet,--Madeira. I always
told them there was nothing there, but they did not believe me, or
I should not have been robbed as I have been. At one time I said
it was whisky, and then I fared worse than ever, for they drank
twice as much of it."
John took the key from his uncle's hand; the dying man pressed it
as he did so, and John, interpreting this as a mark of kindness,
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