| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: captain, who had no respect either for the governor or his
island, and was anxious to push on in quest of provisions and
water. As soon as he could get his inquisitive partners once more
on board, he weighed anchor, and made sail for the island of
Woahoo, the royal residence of Tamaahmaah.
This is the most beautiful island of the Sandwich group. It is
forty-six miles in length and twenty-three in breadth. A ridge of
volcanic mountains extends through the centre, rising into lofty
peaks, and skirted by undulating hills and rich plains, where the
cabins of the natives peep out from beneath groves of cocoanut
and other luxuriant trees.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: damnation. If a doctor were to say to his patients, "I am familiar
with your symptoms, because I have seen other people in your
condition; and I will bring the very little knowledge we have to your
treatment; but except in that very shallow sense I dont know what is
the matter with you; and I cant undertake to cure you," he would be a
lost man professionally; and if a clergyman, on being called on to
award a prize for good conduct in the village school, were to say, "I
am afraid I cannot say who is the best-behaved child, because I really
do not know what good conduct is; but I will gladly take the teacher's
word as to which child has caused least inconvenience," he would
probably be unfrocked, if not excommunicated. And yet no honest and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: But here Antisthenes, appealing to Philippus, interposed: You are a
man full of comparisons.[13] Does not this worthy person strike you as
somewhat like a bully seeking to pick a quarrel?[14]
[13] Like Biron, "L. L. L." v. 2. 854. Or, "you are a clever
caricaturist." See Plat. "Symp." 215 A; Hug, "Enleitung," xiv.;
Aristoph. "Birds," 804 (Frere, p. 173); "Wasps," 1309.
[14] Aristoph. "Frogs," 857, "For it ill beseems illustrious bards to
scold like market-women." (Frere, p. 269); "Knights," 1410, "to
bully"; "Eccles." 142:
{kai loidorountai g' osper empepokotes,
kai ton paroinount' ekpherous' oi toxotai.}
The Symposium |
