| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: with "useful and pleasant," without further thought. As regards
every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it
has the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err.--
Plato did all he could to interpret something refined and noble
into the tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret
himself into them--he, the most daring of all interpreters, who
lifted the entire Socrates out of the street, as a popular theme
and song, to exhibit him in endless and impossible modifications-
-namely, in all his own disguises and multiplicities. In jest,
and in Homeric language as well, what is the Platonic Socrates,
if not-- [Greek words inserted here.]
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: Iván Sergéyevitch, and that was the very reason why
they could never meet without disagreeing and quarreling. In
confirmation of what I say here is a passage from a letter written
by V. Bótkin, a close friend of my father's and of
Iván Sergéyevitch's, to A. A. Fet, written
immediately after their quarrel:
I think that Tolstoy really has a passionately affectionate
nature and he would like to love Turgénieff in the warmest
way possible; but unfortunately his impulsive feeling encounters
nothing but a kindly, good-natured indifference, and he can by no
means reconcile himself to that.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: proportioned and comfortably furnished, with pictures on the wall,
shells on the mantelpiece, and several books upon the table which I
found afterwards to be all of a devotional character, and all
presentation copies, 'to my Christian friend,' or 'to my devout
acquaintance in the Lord, Bethiah McRankine.' Beyond this my
'Christian friend' could not be made to advance: no, not even to do
that which seemed the most natural and pleasing thing in the world
- I mean to name her price - but stood before us shaking her head,
and at times mourning like the dove, the picture of depression and
defence. She had a voice the most querulous I have ever heard, and
with this she produced a whole regiment of difficulties and
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