| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: a long drive this morning; perhaps we may hail them from
some of these hills. They talked of coming into this side of the country.
I wonder whereabouts they will upset to-day. Oh! it does happen
very often, I assure you; but my sister makes nothing of it;
she would as lieve be tossed out as not."
"Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were
really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man,
as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should ever
separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely
by anybody else."
It was spoken with enthusiasm.
Persuasion |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: ent cruising. I would make land by myself. I would
beat the other boats. Youth! All youth! The silly,
charming, beautiful youth.
"But we did not make a start at once. We must see
the last of the ship. And so the boats drifted about that
night, heaving and setting on the swell. The men dozed,
waked, sighed, groaned. I looked at the burning ship.
"Between the darkness of earth and heaven she was
burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea shot by the
blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc of water glitter-
ing and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and
Youth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: not less ridiculous, but being a trade in learning must be called by some
name germane to the matter?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: The latter should have two names,--one descriptive of the sale
of the knowledge of virtue, and the other of the sale of other kinds of
knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: The name of art-seller corresponds well enough to the latter;
but you must try and tell me the name of the other.
THEAETETUS: He must be the Sophist, whom we are seeking; no other name can
possibly be right.
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