| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: on, according to his own poor notion. He proceeds to question Cleinias.
The result of the investigation may be summed up as follows:--
All men desire good; and good means the possession of goods, such as
wealth, health, beauty, birth, power, honour; not forgetting the virtues
and wisdom. And yet in this enumeration the greatest good of all is
omitted. What is that? Good fortune. But what need is there of good
fortune when we have wisdom already:--in every art and business are not the
wise also the fortunate? This is admitted. And again, the possession of
goods is not enough; there must also be a right use of them which can only
be given by knowledge: in themselves they are neither good nor evil--
knowledge and wisdom are the only good, and ignorance and folly the only
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: and sketch from nature."
He blenched, and partially rose, unable to conceal his dismay.
She, resolved not to be cast off, seized him and clung to him.
This was the movement that excited the derision of Wickens's boy
in the adjacent gravel pit. Trefusis was glad of the
interruption; and, when he gave the boy twopence and bade him
begone, half hoped that he would insist on remaining. But though
an obdurate boy on most occasions, he proved complaisant on this,
and withdrew to the high road, where he made over one of his
pennies to a phantom gambler, and tossed with him until recalled
from his dual state by the appearance of Fairholme's party.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: narrow-mindedness that stood confessed in the very way that her hair
grew, low on the forehead, which was slightly depressed; he discovered
in the perfect regularity of her features a certain set rigidity which
before long made him hate the assumed sweetness that had bewitched
him. Intuition told him that one day of disaster those thin lips might
say, "My dear, it is for your good!"
Madame de Granville's complexion was acquiring a dull pallor and an
austere expression that were a kill-joy to all who came near her. Was
this change wrought by the ascetic habits of a pharisaism which is not
piety any more than avarice is economy? It would be hard to say.
Beauty without expression is perhaps an imposture. This imperturbable
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