| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: the voice or grasp the hand of a friend, in a shipwreck, in a defeat, in
some other failure or misfortune, may restore the necessary courage and
composure to the paralysed and disordered mind, and convert the feeble
person into a hero; (compare Symposium).
It is true that friendships are apt to be disappointing: either we expect
too much from them; or we are indolent and do not 'keep them in repair;' or
being admitted to intimacy with another, we see his faults too clearly and
lose our respect for him; and he loses his affection for us. Friendships
may be too violent; and they may be too sensitive. The egotism of one of
the parties may be too much for the other. The word of counsel or sympathy
has been uttered too obtrusively, at the wrong time, or in the wrong
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: I had committed such crimes, and for the fact as it was an
offence against God and my neighbour, but I mourned that I
was to be punished for it. I was a penitent, as I thought, not
that I had sinned, but that I was to suffer, and this took away
all the comfort, and even the hope of my repentance in my
own thoughts.
I got no sleep for several nights or days after I came into that
wretched place, and glad I would have been for some time to
have died there, though I did not consider dying as it ought to
be considered neither; indeed, nothing could be filled with
more horror to my imagination than the very place, nothing
Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: smoke-stacks exhaled no visible smoke--the wind devoured it! The
excitement on shore became wild;--men shouted themselves hoarse;
women laughed and cried. Every telescope and opera-glass was
directed upon the coming apparition; all wondered how the pilot
kept his feet; all marvelled at the madness of the captain.
But Captain Abraham Smith was not mad. A veteran American
sailor, he had learned to know the great Gulf as scholars know
deep books by heart: he knew the birthplace of its tempests, the
mystery of its tides, the omens of its hurricanes. While lying
at Brashear City he felt the storm had not yet reached its
highest, vaguely foresaw a mighty peril, and resolved to wait no
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