| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Dick!" she cried, "alas the day that ever ye should have seen me!
For like a most unhappy and unthankful maid, it is I have led you
hither."
"What cheer!" returned Dick. "It was all written, and that which
is written, willy nilly, cometh still to pass. But tell me a
little what manner of a maid ye are, and how ye came into Sir
Daniel's hands; that will do better than to bemoan yourself,
whether for your sake or mine."
"I am an orphan, like yourself, of father and mother," said Joanna;
"and for my great misfortune, Dick, and hitherto for yours, I am a
rich marriage. My Lord Foxham had me to ward; yet it appears Sir
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: smart."
My companion, who appeared to reflect on this, after a moment
appealed. "Do you call him a real gentleman?"
I started slightly at the question, for I had a sense of
recognising it: George Gravener, years before, that first flushed
night, had put me face to face with it. It had embarrassed me
then, but it didn't embarrass me now, for I had lived with it and
overcome it and disposed of it. "A real gentleman? Emphatically
not!"
My promptitude surprised her a little, but I quickly felt how
little it was to Gravener I was now talking. "Do you say that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: greater.
Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the
poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind.
But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with
them?
A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and,
what is more, a bad lie.
But when is this fault committed?
Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and
heroes,--as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a
likeness to the original.
The Republic |
