| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: ION: That proof strikes home to me, Socrates. For I must frankly confess
that at the tale of pity my eyes are filled with tears, and when I speak of
horrors, my hair stands on end and my heart throbs.
SOCRATES: Well, Ion, and what are we to say of a man who at a sacrifice or
festival, when he is dressed in holiday attire, and has golden crowns upon
his head, of which nobody has robbed him, appears weeping or panic-stricken
in the presence of more than twenty thousand friendly faces, when there is
no one despoiling or wronging him;--is he in his right mind or is he not?
ION: No indeed, Socrates, I must say that, strictly speaking, he is not in
his right mind.
SOCRATES: And are you aware that you produce similar effects on most of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: And his compass is but of a single note,
That it makes one weary to hear.'
`Mock me not! mock me not! love, let us go.'
`No, love, no.
For the bud ever breaks into bloom on the tree,
And a storm never wakes on the lonely sea,
And a worm is there in the lonely wood,
That pierces the liver and blackens the blood,
And makes it a sorrow to be.'
THE RINGLET.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent
among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to
avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity
in the most savage and inhuman breast.
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one
million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two
hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which
number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to
maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot
be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this
being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand
A Modest Proposal |
