| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: If we had one real critic in London--but what
can one expect? Do you know, Alexander,"--
Mainhall looked with perplexity up into the
top of the hansom and rubbed his pink cheek
with his gloved finger,--"do you know, I sometimes
think of taking to criticism seriously myself.
In a way, it would be a sacrifice;
but, dear me, we do need some one."
Just then they drove up to the Duke of York's,
so Alexander did not commit himself,
but followed Mainhall into the theatre.
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: evil? Prodicus answered, as you did just now, that they were a good to
good men and to those who knew in what way they should be employed, while
to the bad and the ignorant they were an evil. The same is true, he went
on to say, of all other things; men make them to be what they are
themselves. The saying of Archilochus is true:--
'Men's thoughts correspond to the things which they meet with.'
Well, then, replied the youth, if any one makes me wise in that wisdom
whereby good men become wise, he must also make everything else good to me.
Not that he concerns himself at all with these other things, but he has
converted my ignorance into wisdom. If, for example, a person teach me
grammar or music, he will at the same time teach me all that relates to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: young."
"How long was you young?"
"Only two weeks. That was plenty for me. Laws, I was so lonesome!
You see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two
years; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only
A-B-C to me. And to hear them argue - oh, my! it would have been
funny, if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well, I was so hungry for the
ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with
the old people, but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a
conceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks
was a-plenty for me. I was glad to get back my bald head again,
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