| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: natures that are not susceptible to influence.
LORD CAVERSHAM. He is very heartless, very heartless.
LORD GORING. It seems to me that I am a little in the way here.
MABEL CHILTERN. It is very good for you to be in the way, and to
know what people say of you behind your back.
LORD GORING. I don't at all like knowing what people say of me
behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.
LORD CAVERSHAM. After that, my dear, I really must bid you good
morning.
MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! I hope you are not going to leave me all alone
with Lord Goring? Especially at such an early hour in the day.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: is the measure of all things,' is expressly identified by Socrates with the
other statement, that 'What appears to each man is to him;' and a reference
is made to the books in which the statement occurs;--this Theaetetus, who
has 'often read the books,' is supposed to acknowledge (so Cratylus). And
Protagoras, in the speech attributed to him, never says that he has been
misunderstood: he rather seems to imply that the absoluteness of sensation
at each instant was to be found in his words. He is only indignant at the
'reductio ad absurdum' devised by Socrates for his 'homo mensura,' which
Theodorus also considers to be 'really too bad.'
The question may be raised, how far Plato in the Theaetetus could have
misrepresented Protagoras without violating the laws of dramatic
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: less true that all sympathy, moral or physical, is based upon
calculations made either by the mind, or by sentiment or brutality.
Love is an essentially selfish passion. Self means deep calculation.
To every mind which looks only at results, it will seem at first sight
singular and unlikely that a beautiful girl like Cesarine should love
a poor lame fellow with red hair. Yet this phenomenon is completely in
harmony with the arithmetic of middle-class sentiments. To explain it,
would be to give the reason of marriages which are constantly looked
upon with surprise,--marriages between tall and beautiful women and
puny men, or between ugly little creatures and handsome men. Every man
who is cursed with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is,--club-
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
