| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: falsely, the falsehood is obviously unintentional. He is compelled against
his will to remain and rescue the army in their misfortune. But when
Odysseus speaks falsely he is voluntarily and intentionally false.
SOCRATES: You, sweet Hippias, like Odysseus, are a deceiver yourself.
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates; what makes you say so?
SOCRATES: Because you say that Achilles does not speak falsely from
design, when he is not only a deceiver, but besides being a braggart, in
Homer's description of him is so cunning, and so far superior to Odysseus
in lying and pretending, that he dares to contradict himself, and Odysseus
does not find him out; at any rate he does not appear to say anything to
him which would imply that he perceived his falsehood.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: For your most comfortable hand
That led me through the uneven land:
For all the story-books you read:
For all the pains you comforted:
For all you pitied, all you bore,
In sad and happy days of yore:--
My second Mother, my first Wife,
The angel of my infant life--
From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!
And grant it, Heaven, that all who read
A Child's Garden of Verses |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: that most exquisite, tantalizing and fragrant of smells--the
aroma of simmering coffee. It permeated the house. It
tickled the senses. It carried with it visions of hot,
brown breakfast rolls, and eggs, and butter. Fanny loved
her breakfast. She turned over now, and decided to go to
sleep again. But she could not. She got up and dressed
slowly and carefully. There was no one to hurry her this
morning with the call from the foot of the stairs of,
"Fanny! Your egg'll get cold!"
She put on clean, crisp underwear, and did her hair
expertly. She slipped an all-enveloping pinafore over her
Fanny Herself |
