| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: inharmonious, and far from clear. Many points require further explanation;
e.g. the reference of pleasure to the indefinite class, compared with the
assertion which almost immediately follows, that pleasure and pain
naturally have their seat in the third or mixed class: these two
statements are unreconciled. In like manner, the table of goods does not
distinguish between the two heads of measure and symmetry; and though a
hint is given that the divine mind has the first place, nothing is said of
this in the final summing up. The relation of the goods to the sciences
does not appear; though dialectic may be thought to correspond to the
highest good, the sciences and arts and true opinions are enumerated in the
fourth class. We seem to have an intimation of a further discussion, in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: First came Harry; but hope did not enter. It was
inconceivable that he, too, should have escaped that fearful
torrent; stupendous luck alone had saved me from being dashed
senseless against the rocks and guided me to the ledge on which I
rested.
Then he was gone! I had no thought of my own peril. I had
gone through the world with but little regard for what it held;
nothing had been sacred to me; no affection had been more than a
day's caprice; I had merely sucked amusement from its bitter fruit.
But I loved Harry; I realized it with something like
astonishment. He was dear to me; a keen, intense pain contracted
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the
amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen
present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so
smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a
thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after,
the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But
he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few
moments' confidential business with him. That business consisted in
fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps
going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair.
I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview
Moby Dick |
