| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: Phidias or Praxiteles; and not rather of an imaginary beauty, of a sort
which extinguishes rather than stimulates vulgar love,--a heavenly beauty
like that which flashed from time to time before the eyes of Dante or
Bunyan? Surely the latter. But it would be idle to reconcile all the
details of the passage: it is a picture, not a system, and a picture which
is for the greater part an allegory, and an allegory which allows the
meaning to come through. The image of the charioteer and his steeds is
placed side by side with the absolute forms of justice, temperance, and the
like, which are abstract ideas only, and which are seen with the eye of the
soul in her heavenly journey. The first impression of such a passage, in
which no attempt is made to separate the substance from the form, is far
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: but a new world of law. . .where the strong are just. . .
and the weak secure. . .and the peace preserved. . . .
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days.
Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days. . .
nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps
in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
In your hands, my fellow citizens. . .more than mine. . .will rest the
final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded,
each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony
to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered
the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again. . .
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: books: the string the pearls were strung on, the buried treasure,
the figure in the carpet."
He began to flush - the numbers on his bumps to come out.
"Vereker's books had a general intention?"
I stared in my turn. "You don't mean to say you don't know it?" I
thought for a moment he was playing with me. "Mrs. Deane knew it;
she had it, as I say, straight from Corvick, who had, after
infinite search and to Vereker's own delight, found the very mouth
of the cave. Where IS the mouth? He told after their marriage -
and told alone - the person who, when the circumstances were
reproduced, must have told you. Have I been wrong in taking for
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