| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: of weighing is one thing, and the heavy and the light another. Do you
admit that?
Yes.
Now, I want to know, what is that which is not wisdom, and of which wisdom
is the science?
You are just falling into the old error, Socrates, he said. You come
asking in what wisdom or temperance differs from the other sciences, and
then you try to discover some respect in which they are alike; but they are
not, for all the other sciences are of something else, and not of
themselves; wisdom alone is a science of other sciences, and of itself.
And of this, as I believe, you are very well aware: and that you are only
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: up to Gluck and stood still, as if expecting some comment on his
communication.
Gluck determined to say something at all events. "I hope your
Majesty is very well," said Gluck.
"Listen!" said the little man, deigning no reply to this
polite inquiry. "I am the king of what you mortals call the Golden
River. The shape you saw me in was owing to the malice of a
stronger king, from whose enchantments you have this instant freed
me. What I have seen of you and your conduct to your wicked
brothers renders me willing to serve you; therefore, attend to what
I tell you. Whoever shall climb to the top of that mountain from
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: That was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was a good,
plain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself
to us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is about it.
I also enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a marring misgiving
that every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier
a couple of times (two easily grows to seventeen in a century),
and missed him, jumped to the conclusion that the Great Spirit
was reserving that soldier for some grand mission; and so I somehow
feared that the only reason why Washington's case is remembered
and the others forgotten is, that in his the prophecy came true,
and in that of the others it didn't. There are not books enough
|
