| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: as you are, or will you take some pains about yourself?
ALCIBIADES: With your aid, Socrates, I will. And indeed, when I hear you
speak, the truth of what you are saying strikes home to me, and I agree
with you, for our statesmen, all but a few, do appear to be quite
uneducated.
SOCRATES: What is the inference?
ALCIBIADES: Why, that if they were educated they would be trained
athletes, and he who means to rival them ought to have knowledge and
experience when he attacks them; but now, as they have become politicians
without any special training, why should I have the trouble of learning and
practising? For I know well that by the light of nature I shall get the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: to expel the thoughts of release which captivate Adolphe when absent.
The constant exchange of glances and thoughts in domestic life gives a
woman such power that a man needs stronger reasons for desertion than
she will ever give him so long as she loves him.
This was an entirely new phase both to Etienne and to Dinah. Dinah
intended to be indispensable; she wanted to infuse fresh energy into
this man, whose weakness smiled upon her, for she thought it a
security. She found him subjects, sketched the treatment, and at a
pinch, would write whole chapters. She revived the vitality of this
dying talent by transfusing fresh blood into his veins; she supplied
him with ideas and opinions. In short, she produced two books which
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: genera and their primordial parent, and every intermediate link in each
branch and sub-branch of their descendants, may be supposed to be still
alive; and the links to be as fine as those between the finest varieties.
In this case it would be quite impossible to give any definition by which
the several members of the several groups could be distinguished from their
more immediate parents; or these parents from their ancient and unknown
progenitor. Yet the natural arrangement in the diagram would still hold
good; and, on the principle of inheritance, all the forms descended from A,
or from I, would have something in common. In a tree we can specify this
or that branch, though at the actual fork the two unite and blend together.
We could not, as I have said, define the several groups; but we could pick
On the Origin of Species |
