| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: into a palm tree.
When they had left the last enclosure they directed their steps
towards Hamilcar's palace, Spendius understanding that it would be
useless to try to dissuade Matho.
They went by the street of the Tanners, the square of Muthumbal, the
green market and the crossways of Cynasyn. At the angle of a wall a
man drew back frightened by the sparkling thing which pierced the
darkness.
"Hide the zaimph!" said Spendius.
Other people passed them, but without perceiving them.
At last they recognised the houses of Megara.
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: education is that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learnt the
lessons of temperance and endurance, and the body and mind develope in
equal proportions. The first principle which runs through all art and
nature is simplicity; this also is to be the rule of human life.
The second stage of education is gymnastic, which answers to the period of
muscular growth and development. The simplicity which is enforced in music
is extended to gymnastic; Plato is aware that the training of the body may
be inconsistent with the training of the mind, and that bodily exercise may
be easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give men a
headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philosophy, and this they
attribute not to the true cause, but to the nature of the subject. Two
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: all, the one excuse and breath of art - charm. A little
further, and he will regard charm in the light of an unworthy
sacrifice to prettiness, and the omission of a tedious
passage as an infidelity to art.
We have now the matter of this difference before us. The
idealist, his eye singly fixed upon the greater outlines,
loves rather to fill up the interval with detail of the
conventional order, briefly touched, soberly suppressed in
tone, courting neglect. But the realist, with a fine
intemperance, will not suffer the presence of anything so
dead as a convention; he shall have all fiery, all hot-
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