| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: good, and if modesty is as much an evil as a good?
All that, Socrates, appears to me to be true; but I should like to know
what you think about another definition of temperance, which I just now
remember to have heard from some one, who said, 'That temperance is doing
our own business.' Was he right who affirmed that?
You monster! I said; this is what Critias, or some philosopher has told
you.
Some one else, then, said Critias; for certainly I have not.
But what matter, said Charmides, from whom I heard this?
No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words, but
whether they are true or not.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: in the hall of the palace, whence it was hurried secretly and at
night to Chapoltepec, and there hidden away with small ceremony,
for it was feared that the people might rend it limb from limb in
their rage. With Otomie weeping at my side, I looked for the last
time on the face of that most unhappy king, whose reign so glorious
in its beginning had ended thus. And while I looked I wondered
what suffering could have equalled his, as fallen from his estate
and hated by the subjects whom he had betrayed, he lay dying, a
prisoner in the power of the foreign wolves who were tearing out
his country's heart. It is little wonder indeed that Montezuma
rent the bandages from his wounds and would not suffer them to tend
 Montezuma's Daughter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: angrily. "Thomas is responsible. I've heard the story a dozen
times already."
"I only told him to mind his own business."
"He can't. He's a born meddler. Now he's queered you with the
whole place."
"Can't help it. I wasn't going to let him get away with his
impudence. Why should I?"
Miller shrugged. "Policy, my boy. Better take the advice of Cousin
James and crawl into your shell till the storm has pelted past."
Half an hour later Jeff met his cousin near the chapel and was
taken to task.
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