| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: at Bologna, the old bricks and old time-eaten stones of this house
persistently preserve their centre of gravity.
At every season of the year the solid piers of the ground floor have
the yellow tone and the imperceptible sweating surface that moisture
gives to stone. The passer-by feels chilled as he walks close to this
wall, where worn corner-stones ineffectually shelter him from the
wheels of vehicles. As is always the case in houses built before
carriages were in use, the vault of the doorway forms a very low
archway not unlike the barbican of a prison. To the right of this
entrance there are three windows, protected outside by iron gratings
of so close a pattern, that the curious cannot possibly see the use
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: face cut out in the beam. The one story stood forward a great way over the
other; and directly under the eaves was a leaden spout with a dragon's head;
the rain-water should have run out of the mouth, but it ran out of the belly,
for there was a hole in the spout.
All the other houses in the street were so new and so neat, with large window
panes and smooth walls, one could easily see that they would have nothing to
do with the old house: they certainly thought, "How long is that old decayed
thing to stand here as a spectacle in the street? And then the projecting
windows stand so far out, that no one can see from our windows what happens in
that direction! The steps are as broad as those of a palace, and as high as to
a church tower. The iron railings look just like the door to an old family
Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: assertion that if virtue is knowledge it may be taught; but I fear that I
have some reason in doubting whether virtue is knowledge: for consider now
and say whether virtue, and not only virtue but anything that is taught,
must not have teachers and disciples?
MENO: Surely.
SOCRATES: And conversely, may not the art of which neither teachers nor
disciples exist be assumed to be incapable of being taught?
MENO: True; but do you think that there are no teachers of virtue?
SOCRATES: I have certainly often enquired whether there were any, and
taken great pains to find them, and have never succeeded; and many have
assisted me in the search, and they were the persons whom I thought the
|
