| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: stages of thought which have always existed implicitly and unconsciously,
and to which the mind of the world, gradually disengaged from sense, has
become awakened. The present has been the past. The succession in time of
human ideas is also the eternal 'now'; it is historical and also a divine
ideal. The history of philosophy stripped of personality and of the other
accidents of time and place is gathered up into philosophy, and again
philosophy clothed in circumstance expands into history. (iii) Whether
regarded as present or past, under the form of time or of eternity, the
spirit of dialectic is always moving onwards from one determination of
thought to another, receiving each successive system of philosophy and
subordinating it to that which follows--impelled by an irresistible
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: training as a company of recruits the first day's muster. [Exit.]
MISS HARDCASTLE. (Alone). Lud, this news of papa's puts me all in a
flutter. Young, handsome: these he put last; but I put them foremost.
Sensible, good-natured; I like all that. But then reserved and
sheepish; that's much against him. Yet can't he be cured of his
timidity, by being taught to be proud of his wife? Yes, and can't
I--But I vow I'm disposing of the husband before I have secured the
lover.
Enter MISS NEVILLE.
MISS HARDCASTLE. I'm glad you're come, Neville, my dear. Tell me,
Constance, how do I look this evening? Is there anything whimsical
She Stoops to Conquer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: At the veils of their secrets in vain--
For lo! they have left me and vanished,
The songs that I cannot sing.
There are visions elusive that come
With a quiver and shimmer of wings;--
Shapes shadows and shapes, and the murmur
Of voices;--
Shapes, that out of the twilight
Leap, and with gesture appealing
Seem to deliver a message,
And are gone 'twixt a breath and a breath;--
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