| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: acquire the power of hearing, may use that very faculty for the acquisition
of virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: But can that which is evil be useful for virtue?
CRITIAS: No.
SOCRATES: It is not therefore necessary that the means by which we obtain
what is useful for a certain object should always be useful for the same
object: for it seems that bad actions may sometimes serve good purposes?
The matter will be still plainer if we look at it in this way:--If things
are useful towards the several ends for which they exist, which ends would
not come into existence without them, how would you regard them? Can
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: which she had at first placed herself. Next she made some concession;
Lousteau was allowed to entertain several of his friends--Nathan,
Bixiou, Blondet, Finot, whose manners, language, and intercourse were
depraving. They tried to convince Madame de la Baudraye that her
principles and aversions were a survival of provincial prudishness;
and they preached the creed of woman's superiority.
Before long, her jealousy put weapons into Lousteau's hands. During
the carnival of 1840, she disguised herself to go to the balls at the
Opera-house, and to suppers where she met courtesans, in order to keep
an eye on all Etienne's amusements.
On the day of Mid-Lent--or rather, at eight on the morning after--
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sank
than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them no doubt did
it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for
quickening them to repentance, but it certainly answered not their
end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way; and
indeed, as God Himself through the whole Scriptures rather draws to
Him by invitations and calls to turn to Him and live, than drives us by
terror and amazement, so I must confess I thought the ministers
should have done also, imitating our blessed Lord and Master in this,
that His whole Gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God's
mercy, and His readiness to receive penitents and forgive them,
A Journal of the Plague Year |
