| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: place had the flush of life - it was expressive; its dark red walls
were articulate with memories and relics. These were simple things
- photographs and water-colours, scraps of writing framed and
ghosts of flowers embalmed; but a moment sufficed to show him they
had a common meaning. It was here she had lived and worked, and
she had already told him she would make no change of scene. He
read the reference in the objects about her - the general one to
places and times; but after a minute he distinguished among them a
small portrait of a gentleman. At a distance and without their
glasses his eyes were only so caught by it as to feel a vague
curiosity. Presently this impulse carried him nearer, and in
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring
those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time,
formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and
control of arms. . .and bring the absolute power to destroy
other nations under the absolute control of all nations.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead
of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the
deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage
the arts and commerce. Let both sides unite to heed in all corners
of the earth the command of Isaiah. . .to "undo the heavy burdens. . .
let the oppressed go free."
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: that are born and perish, as in the instances which we were giving, for in
those cases, and when unity is of this concrete nature, there is, as I was
saying, a universal consent that no refutation is needed; but when the
assertion is made that man is one, or ox is one, or beauty one, or the good
one, then the interest which attaches to these and similar unities and the
attempt which is made to divide them gives birth to a controversy.
PROTARCHUS: Of what nature?
SOCRATES: In the first place, as to whether these unities have a real
existence; and then how each individual unity, being always the same, and
incapable either of generation or of destruction, but retaining a permanent
individuality, can be conceived either as dispersed and multiplied in the
|
