| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: and drew the corner of his mouth up in a sinister curl.
The top of his left ear was gone, and his skin was brown
as an Indian's. Surely this was the face of a desperado.
As he walked about the platform in his high-heeled boots,
looking for our trunks, I saw that he was a rather slight man,
quick and wiry, and light on his feet. He told us we had a long
night drive ahead of us, and had better be on the hike.
He led us to a hitching-bar where two farm-wagons were tied,
and I saw the foreign family crowding into one of them.
The other was for us. Jake got on the front seat with Otto Fuchs,
and I rode on the straw in the bottom of the wagon-box,
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: may be compared to mine, and then the company will know which of us is the
better speaker.
SOCRATES: O Hippias, I do not doubt that you are wiser than I am. But I
have a way, when anybody else says anything, of giving close attention to
him, especially if the speaker appears to me to be a wise man. Having a
desire to understand, I question him, and I examine and analyse and put
together what he says, in order that I may understand; but if the speaker
appears to me to be a poor hand, I do not interrogate him, or trouble
myself about him, and you may know by this who they are whom I deem to be
wise men, for you will see that when I am talking with a wise man, I am
very attentive to what he says; and I ask questions of him, in order that I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him at
all.
SOCRATES: What! have you ever been driven to admit that there was no such
thing as a bad man?
HERMOGENES: No, indeed; but I have often had reason to think that there
are very bad men, and a good many of them.
SOCRATES: Well, and have you ever found any very good ones?
HERMOGENES: Not many.
SOCRATES: Still you have found them?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you hold that the very good were the very wise, and
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