| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: "But it is impossible!" Vassilyev said aloud, and he sank upon
his bed. "I, to begin with, could not marry one! To do that one
must be a saint and be unable to feel hatred or repulsion. But
supposing that I, the medical student, and the artist mastered
ourselves and did marry them -- suppose they were all married.
What would be the result? The result would be that while here in
Moscow they were being married, some Smolensk accountant would be
debauching another lot, and that lot would be streaming here to
fill the vacant places, together with others from Saratov,
Nizhni-Novgorod, Warsaw. . . . And what is one to do with the
hundred thousand in London? What's one to do with those in
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: assumption is right or wrong may hereafter be investigated. Admitting the
existence of it, will you tell me how such a science enables us to
distinguish what we know or do not know, which, as we were saying, is
self-knowledge or wisdom: so we were saying?
Yes, Socrates, he said; and that I think is certainly true: for he who has
this science or knowledge which knows itself will become like the knowledge
which he has, in the same way that he who has swiftness will be swift, and
he who has beauty will be beautiful, and he who has knowledge will know.
In the same way he who has that knowledge which is self-knowing, will know
himself.
I do not doubt, I said, that a man will know himself, when he possesses
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,
And offer me disguis'd in sober robes,
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;
That so I may, by this device at least
Have leave and leisure to make love to her,
And unsuspected court her by herself.
GRUMIO.
Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the
young folks lay their heads together!
[Enter GREMIO, and LUCENTIO disguised, with books under his arm.]
The Taming of the Shrew |
