| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: notion- science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth.
A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally,
both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An
Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized
state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what
he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is
undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is
excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is
self-assured just because he knows nothing does not want to know
anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The
German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: halted, and again cast a rapid glance behind and ahead of
her. Then she held out her hand. "Well, then, thank you--
and let me relieve your fears. I sha'n't be Effie's
governess much longer."
At the announcement, Darrow tried to merge his look of
relief into the expression of friendly interest with which
he grasped her hand. "You really do agree with me, then?
And you'll give me a chance to talk things over with you?"
She shook her head with a faint smile. "I'm not thinking of
the stage. I've had another offer: that's all."
The relief was hardly less great. After all, his personal
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: idealism, Alcibiades, accompanied by a troop of revellers and a flute-girl,
staggers in, and being drunk is able to tell of things which he would have
been ashamed to make known if he had been sober. The state of his
affections towards Socrates, unintelligible to us and perverted as they
appear, affords an illustration of the power ascribed to the loves of man
in the speech of Pausanias. He does not suppose his feelings to be
peculiar to himself: there are several other persons in the company who
have been equally in love with Socrates, and like himself have been
deceived by him. The singular part of this confession is the combination
of the most degrading passion with the desire of virtue and improvement.
Such an union is not wholly untrue to human nature, which is capable of
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