| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: not to fail in my suit, because I am not your lover. For lovers repent--'
SOCRATES: Enough:--Now, shall I point out the rhetorical error of those
words?
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Every one is aware that about some things we are agreed, whereas
about other things we differ.
PHAEDRUS: I think that I understand you; but will you explain yourself?
SOCRATES: When any one speaks of iron and silver, is not the same thing
present in the minds of all?
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But when any one speaks of justice and goodness we part company
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: miserable stairway with anxious rapidity until he reached an upper
chamber nestling between the joists of a roof "en colombage,"--the
plain, slight covering of the houses of old Paris. Near the single and
gloomy window of the room sat a young girl, who rose quickly as the
door opened, with a gesture of love; she had recognized the young
man's touch upon the latch.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
"It is--it is," he cried, choking with joy, "that I feel myself a
painter! I have doubted it till now; but to-day I believe in myself. I
can be a great man. Ah, Gillette, we shall be rich, happy! There is
gold in these brushes!"
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: "land-sharks" deserved the name. Many of them were
reputable men of good business character. Some of
them could walk into the most august councils of the
State and say: "Gentlemen, we would like to have this,
and that, and matters go thus." But, next to a three
years' drought and the boll-worm, the Actual Settler
hated the Land-shark. The land-shark haunted the
Land Office, where all the land records were kept,
and hunted "vacancies" -- that is, tracts of unappro-
priated public domain, generally invisible upon the
official maps, but actually existing "upon the ground."
|
