| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and
intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these
things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher.
All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and
danger from which a philosophical mind should be free. . . .
I fear that trying to be conversational I have only managed to be
unduly discursive. I have never been very well acquainted with
the art of conversation--that art which, I understand, is
supposed to be lost now. My young days, the days when one's
habits and character are formed, have been rather familiar with
long silences. Such voices as broke into them were anything but
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: that nothing was or ever could be written better. Socrates does not think
much of the matter, but then he has only attended to the form, and in that
he has detected several repetitions and other marks of haste. He cannot
agree with Phaedrus in the extreme value which he sets upon this
performance, because he is afraid of doing injustice to Anacreon and Sappho
and other great writers, and is almost inclined to think that he himself,
or rather some power residing within him, could make a speech better than
that of Lysias on the same theme, and also different from his, if he may be
allowed the use of a few commonplaces which all speakers must equally
employ.
Phaedrus is delighted at the prospect of having another speech, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: misses significance. His nose, indeed, is big; but
it is mild; it is a tame nose; one feels no more
character in it than in a false nose. His chin
and forehead retreat ingloriously from the battle
of life.
But all the personality which his eyes should
show, all the force which should dwell in his
nose, all the temperamental qualities that should
reveal themselves in his mouth and chin, all the
genius which should illumine his brow -- these dwell
with his Adam's apple. The man has run entirely
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