| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not
more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake
your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not
make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
'For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what
good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends
will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their
property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the
neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are
well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their
government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: eyes glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile;
her subdued complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now
looked pretty; before, she had only looked ladylike.
She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of
curiosity, which ere long thawed Hunsden's reserve as fire thaws
a congealed viper. I use this not very flattering comparison
because he vividly reminded me of a snake waking from torpor, as
he erected his tall form, reared his head, before a little
declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: it shall exist outside their consciousness. I respect my father
more--I mean I despise him less--for doing his own sweating and
filching than I do the sensitive sluggards and cowards who lent
him their money to sweat and filch with, and asked no questions
provided the interest was paid punctually. And as to your friends
the artists, they are the worst of all."
"Oh, Sidney, you are determined not to be pleased. Artists don't
keep factories."
"No; but the factory is only a part of the machinery of the
system. Its basis is the tyranny of brain force, which, among
civilized men, is allowed to do what muscular force does among
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