| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: And you, sir. [To JEPPO.]
The first man who draws his sword
Upon the meanest officer of this Court,
Dies before nightfall.
DUCHESS
Sirs, put up your swords:
It is most meet that I should hear this man.
[Goes back to throne.]
MORANZONE
Now hast thou got thy enemy in thy hand.
LORD JUSTICE
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: arts, music is given as an example; this, although affirmed to be necessary
to human life, is depreciated. Music is regarded from a point of view
entirely opposite to that of the Republic, not as a sublime science,
coordinate with astronomy, but as full of doubt and conjecture. According
to the standard of accuracy which is here adopted, it is rightly placed
lower in the scale than carpentering, because the latter is more capable of
being reduced to measure.
The theoretical element of the arts may also become a purely abstract
science, when separated from matter, and is then said to be pure and
unmixed. The distinction which Plato here makes seems to be the same as
that between pure and applied mathematics, and may be expressed in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: suspicion. The poor young woman was too pure to suppose that any female
could be guilty of such perfidy; besides, the name of the Comtesse de
Winter, which she had heard the abbess pronounce, was wholly unknown to
her, and she was even ignorant that a woman had had so great and so
fatal a share in the misfortune of her life.
"You see," said she, when the lackey had gone out, "everything is ready.
The abbess suspects nothing, and believes that I am taken by order of
the cardinal. This man goes to give his last orders; take the least
thing, drink a finger of wine, and let us be gone."
"Yes," said Mme. Bonacieux, mechanically, "yes, let us be gone."
Milady made her a sign to sit down opposite, poured her a small glass of
The Three Musketeers |
