| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: what was to be later a long ache for final frivolous rest.
Gravener was profound enough to remark after a moment that in the
first place he couldn't be anything but a Dissenter, and when I
answered that the very note of his fascination was his
extraordinary speculative breadth my friend retorted that there was
no cad like your cultivated cad, and that I might depend upon
discovering--since I had had the levity not already to have
enquired--that my shining light proceeded, a generation back, from
a Methodist cheesemonger. I confess I was struck with his
insistence, and I said, after reflexion: "It may be--I admit it
may be; but why on earth are you so sure?"--asking the question
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: no sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and the like
feelings?
PROTARCHUS: Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, nor is likely,
as I should imagine, to be chosen by any one else.
SOCRATES: What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or to
one that was made out of the union of the two?
PROTARCHUS: Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom?
SOCRATES: Yes, that is the life which I mean.
PROTARCHUS: There can be no difference of opinion; not some but all would
surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in
addition to them.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Jaguar's paw, and his body sank downward, the earth
closing over it again. The last thing Woot the Monkey
saw, as he glanced upward, was the Jaguar peering into
the hole in astonishment.
"He's gone!" cried the beast, with a long-drawn sigh
of disappointment; "he's gone, and now I shall have no
breakfast."
The clatter of the Tin Owl's wings sounded above him,
and the little Brown Bear came trotting up and asked:
"Where is the monkey? Have you eaten him so quickly?"
"No, indeed," answered the Jaguar. "He disappeared
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
