| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: shop by the time he handed the parcel to his customer with a "Here it
is, madame; /nothing else/ to-day?" But the poor fool would have been
ruined without his sister. Sylvie had common-sense and a genius for
trade. She advised her brother in their purchases and would pitilessly
send him to remote parts of France to save a trifle of cost. The
shrewdness which all women more or less possess, not being employed in
the service of her heart, had drifted into that of speculation. A
business to pay for,--that thought was the mainspring which kept the
machine going and gave it an infernal activity.
Rogron was really only head-clerk; he understood nothing of his
business as a whole; self-interest, that great motor of the mind, had
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: were your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David?"
I told them without concealment, expressing, however, with more force
and volume those which regarded Prestongrange himself.
"You do me no more than justice," said he. "I have fought as hard in
your interest as you have fought against mine. And how came you here
to-day?" he asked. "As the case drew out, I began to grow uneasy that
I had clipped the period so fine, and I was even expecting you to-
morrow. But to-day - I never dreamed of it."
I was not of course, going to betray Andie.
"I suspect there is some very weary cattle by the road," said I
"If I had known you were such a mosstrooper you should have tasted
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Yes, I said, Critias; but you come to me as though I professed to know
about the questions which I ask, and as though I could, if I only would,
agree with you. Whereas the fact is that I enquire with you into the truth
of that which is advanced from time to time, just because I do not know;
and when I have enquired, I will say whether I agree with you or not.
Please then to allow me time to reflect.
Reflect, he said.
I am reflecting, I replied, and discover that temperance, or wisdom, if
implying a knowledge of anything, must be a science, and a science of
something.
Yes, he said; the science of itself.
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