| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some contemporary
transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some
Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master. Not
that on grounds either of language or philosophy we should lightly reject
them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or
inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their
spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes
with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the
greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and
in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later
ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: his back and wiled away the dragging hours of retirement and
inaction by picking his own pockets.
The Dutiful Son
A MILLIONAIRE who had gone to an almshouse to visit his father met
a Neighbour there, who was greatly surprised.
"What!" said the Neighbour, "you do sometimes visit your father?"
"If our situations were reversed," said the Millionaire, "I am sure
he would visit me. The old man has always been rather proud of me.
Besides," he added, softly, "I had to have his signature; I am
insuring his life."
AESOPUS EMENDATUS
Fantastic Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: kill my adversary in an affair of honor. I gave him a mere flesh-wound,
and by this time he must be quite recovered. He was my friend. But as he
came between me--"
Gaston stopped, and the Padre, looking keenly at him, saw the violence
that he had noticed in church pass like a flame over the young man's
handsome face.
"That's nothing dishonorable," said Gaston, answering the priest's look.
And then, because this look made him not quite at his ease: "Perhaps a
priest might feel obliged to say it was dishonorable. She and her father
were--a man owes no fidelity before he is--but you might say that had
been dishonorable."
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