| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a
reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the
friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble
life?'
Such, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were the
words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded
of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human
nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And therefore,
also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and
walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power
and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: be speedily driven out close to an inclined timber path which
leads to an elevated covered way straddling high above the pens.
These viaducts are two-storied. On the upper story tramp the
doomed cattle, stolidly for the most part. On the lower, with a
scuffling of sharp hoofs and multitudinous yells, run the pigs,
the same end being appointed for each. Thus you will see the
gangs of cattle waiting their turn--as they wait sometimes for
days; and they need not be distressed by the sight of their
fellows running about in the fear of death. All they know is that
a man on horseback causes their next-door neighbors to move by
means of a whip. Certain bars and fences are unshipped, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: or at best of an egoistic scrupulosity. And Mr. Casaubon
had many scruples: he was capable of a severe self-restraint;
he was resolute in being a man of honor according to the code;
he would be unimpeachable by any recognized opinion. In conduct
these ends had been attained; but the difficulty of making his Key
to all Mythologies unimpeachable weighed like lead upon his mind;
and the pamphlets--or "Parerga" as he called them--by which he tested
his public and deposited small monumental records of his march,
were far from having been seen in all their significance.
He suspected the Archdeacon of not having read them; he was
in painful doubt as to what was really thought of them by the
Middlemarch |
