| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: so different in England from South Africa. You couldn't be expected to do
the same sort of things here as there. He had an unpleasant feeling that
he was justifying himself to his mother, and that he didn't know how to.
He leaned further and further forward: so far at last, that the little
white lock of his hair which hung out under his cap was almost singed by
the fire. His eyes were still open, but the lids drooped over them, and
his hands hung lower and lower between his knees. There was no picture
left on his brain now, but simply an impress of the blazing logs before
him.
Then, Trooper Peter Halket started. He sat up and listened. The wind had
gone; there was not a sound: but he listened intently. The fire burnt up
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: What an answer to the refinement of my adoration! I had no dread
of that kind; I, who have almost sought starvation for her sake,
by renouncing fortune and the comforts of my father's house! I,
who denied myself actual necessaries, in order to gratify her
little whims and caprices! She adores me, she says. If you
adored me, ungrateful creature, I well know what course you would
have taken; you would never have quitted me, at least without
saying adieu. It is only I who can tell the pangs and torments,
of being separated from all one loves. I must have taken leave
of my senses, to have voluntarily brought all this misery upon
myself.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: are speaking is knowledge pure and simple.
Very true.
And if a man knows only, and has only knowledge of knowledge, and has no
further knowledge of health and justice, the probability is that he will
only know that he knows something, and has a certain knowledge, whether
concerning himself or other men.
True.
Then how will this knowledge or science teach him to know what he knows?
Say that he knows health;--not wisdom or temperance, but the art of
medicine has taught it to him;--and he has learned harmony from the art of
music, and building from the art of building,--neither, from wisdom or
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