| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: Dialectic, which in the earlier writings of Plato is a revival of the
Socratic question and answer applied to definition, is now occupied with
classification; there is nothing in which he takes greater delight than in
processes of division (compare Phaedr.); he pursues them to a length out of
proportion to his main subject, and appears to value them as a dialectical
exercise, and for their own sake. A poetical vision of some order or
hierarchy of ideas or sciences has already been floating before us in the
Symposium and the Republic. And in the Phaedrus this aspect of dialectic
is further sketched out, and the art of rhetoric is based on the division
of the characters of mankind into their several classes. The same love of
divisions is apparent in the Gorgias. But in a well-known passage of the
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: hold of my coat lapels--'there was something in your speech that made me
think so about my papa!'
`I thought about your papa when I wrote my speech, Tony,' I said.
`I dedicated it to him.'
She threw her arms around me, and her dear face was all wet with tears.
I stood watching their white dresses glimmer smaller and smaller
down the sidewalk as they went away. I have had no other success
that pulled at my heartstrings like that one.
XIV
THE DAY AFTER COMMENCEMENT I moved my books and desk upstairs, to an empty
room where I should be undisturbed, and I fell to studying in earnest.
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: Government of England have had any occasion to fortify towns to the
landward; it is enough that the harbour or road, which is one of
the best and securest in England, is covered at the entrance by a
strong fort and a battery of guns to the seaward, just as at
Tilbury, and which sufficiently defend the mouth of the river. And
there is a particular felicity in this fortification, viz., that
though the entrance or opening of the river into the sea is very
wide, especially at high-water, at least two miles, if not three
over; yet the Channel, which is deep, and in which the ships must
keep and come to the harbour, is narrow, and lies only on the side
of the fort, so that all the ships which come in or go out must
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