| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: you, is the science of itself. Admitting this view, I ask of you, what
good work, worthy of the name wise, does temperance or wisdom, which is the
science of itself, effect? Answer me.
That is not the true way of pursuing the enquiry, Socrates, he said; for
wisdom is not like the other sciences, any more than they are like one
another: but you proceed as if they were alike. For tell me, he said,
what result is there of computation or geometry, in the same sense as a
house is the result of building, or a garment of weaving, or any other work
of any other art? Can you show me any such result of them? You cannot.
That is true, I said; but still each of these sciences has a subject which
is different from the science. I can show you that the art of computation
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: fairly ground into the alkali. There she had choked and
strangled and gasped and sobbed, her mind nearly unhinged with
terror. She kept appealing to him in a hoarse voice, but could
get no reply, no indication that he had even heard. This
terrified her still more. Brent Palmer cursed steadily and
accurately, but the man did not seem to hear him either.
The tempest bad broken in Buck Johnson's soul. When he had
touched Estrella he had, for the first time, realised what he had
lost. It was not the woman--her he despised. But the dreams!
All at once he knew what they had been to him--he understood how
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: "Thou art wiser, O King, than Solyman the Great, and thy servant is
as dust in the tomb of thy dog, yet thou errest. I did not, it is
true, kill the tiger, but behold! I have brought thee the scalp of
the man who had accumulated five million pieces of gold and was
after more."
The King drew his consoler-under-disappointment, and, flicking off
Camaraladdin's head, said:
"Learn, caitiff, the expediency of uncalculating zeal. If the
millionaire had been let alone he would have devoured the tiger."
A Transposition
TRAVELLING through the sage-brush country a Jackass met a rabbit,
Fantastic Fables |
