| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: "Because, countess," he answered with perfect ease of manner, "there
are no thanks due. I am Adam's friend, and it gives me pleasure to
take care of his interests."
"And you remain standing for your pleasure, too," remarked Comte Adam.
Paz sat down on a chair near the door.
"I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards in
the courtyard," said Clementine. "But why do you put yourself in a
position of inferiority,--you, Adam's friend?"
"I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians," he
replied. "I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two."
"But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: no matter how small, if I tried to miss it; and of course at
first I couldn't help trying to do that. It is but natural.
It is part of the ass that is put in us all, for some
inscrutable reason.
It was at the end of my course, at last, and it was necessary
for me to round to. This is not a pleasant thing, when you
undertake it for the first time on your own responsibility,
and neither is it likely to succeed. Your confidence oozes away,
you fill steadily up with nameless apprehensions, every fiber of
you is tense with a watchful strain, you start a cautious and
gradual curve, but your squirmy nerves are all full of electric
What is Man? |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: acquisition or possession of them: the student is liable to grow weary of
them, and soon discovers that continuous mental energy is not granted to
men. The most sensual pleasure, on the other hand, is inseparable from the
consciousness of pleasure; no man can be happy who, to borrow Plato's
illustration, is leading the life of an oyster. Hence (by his own
confession) the main thesis is not worth determining; the real interest
lies in the incidental discussion. We can no more separate pleasure from
knowledge in the Philebus than we can separate justice from happiness in
the Republic.
IV. An interesting account is given in the Philebus of the rank and order
of the sciences or arts, which agrees generally with the scheme of
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