| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: mind, and have such ideas?
ALCIBIADES: Obviously.
SOCRATES: You acknowledge that for some persons in certain cases the
ignorance of some things is a good and not an evil, as you formerly
supposed?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: And there is still another case which will also perhaps appear
strange to you, if you will consider it? (The reading is here uncertain.)
ALCIBIADES: What is that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: It may be, in short, that the possession of all the sciences, if
unaccompanied by the knowledge of the best, will more often than not injure
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: those who have perverted your heart and your reason. You have prayed
for me, just as Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille has given me her heart
and crowned my life with love. You should have been my mistress and
the prayerful saint by turns.--Do me the justice to confess that I am
no reprobate, no debauchee. My life was cleanly. Alas! after seven
years of wretchedness, the craving for happiness led me by an
imperceptible descent to love another woman and make a second home.
And do not imagine that I am singular; there are in this city
thousands of husbands, all led by various causes to live this twofold
life."
"Great God!" cried the Countess. "How heavy is the cross Thou hast
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the
sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that
had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was
persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to
a happy termination.
But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and
apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary
treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best
in these sheltered, long settled retreats; but are trampled under
foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of
our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
