| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: masters.
Plato does not add the further observation, that the etymological meaning
of words is in process of being lost. If at first framed on a principle of
intelligibility, they would gradually cease to be intelligible, like those
of a foreign language, he is willing to admit that they are subject to many
changes, and put on many disguises. He acknowledges that the 'poor
creature' imitation is supplemented by another 'poor creature,'--
convention. But he does not see that 'habit and repute,' and their
relation to other words, are always exercising an influence over them.
Words appear to be isolated, but they are really the parts of an organism
which is always being reproduced. They are refined by civilization,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: and no way pleased to find the man alive, whose
heirs they had proposed themselves to be. I asked
for wine---they gave me some, but it must have
been highly medicated, for I slept yet more deeply
than before, and wakened not for many hours. I
found my arms swathed down---my feet tied so fast
that mine ankles ache at the very remembrance---
the place was utterly dark---the oubliette, as I suppose,
of their accursed convent, and from the close,
stifled, damp smell, I conceive it is also used for a
place of sepulture. I had strange thoughts of what
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler
Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn
These unfamiliar haunts, this English field,
For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield
Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose
Which all day long in vales AEolian
A lad might seek in vain for over-grows
Our hedges like a wanton courtesan
Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too
Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue
Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs
|
