| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: to the idea of beauty and good. Mind is in motion as well as at rest
(Soph.); and may be described as a dialectical progress which passes from
one limit or determination of thought to another and back again to the
first. This is the account of dialectic given by Plato in the Sixth Book
of the Republic, which regarded under another aspect is the mysticism of
the Symposium. He does not deny the existence of objects of sense, but
according to him they only receive their true meaning when they are
incorporated in a principle which is above them (Republic). In modern
language they might be said to come first in the order of experience, last
in the order of nature and reason. They are assumed, as he is fond of
repeating, upon the condition that they shall give an account of themselves
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: no sign of life ever appeared; it was as if, for fear of my catching
a glimpse of them, the two ladies passed their days in the dark.
But this only proved to me that they had something to conceal;
which was what I had wished to demonstrate. Their motionless shutters
became as expressive as eyes consciously closed, and I took comfort
in thinking that at all events through invisible themselves they saw me
between the lashes.
I made a point of spending as much time as possible in the garden,
to justify the picture I had originally given of my horticultural passion.
And I not only spent time, but (hang it! as I said) I spent money.
As soon as I had got my rooms arranged and could give the proper
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: utterly, and openly ridiculed his abortive seamanship. Pretty she
was not, but she soon began to have a certain amount of attraction
for Wilbur. He liked her splendid ropes of hair, her heavy
contralto voice, her fine animal strength of bone and muscle
(admittedly greater than his own); he admired her indomitable
courage and self-reliance, while her positive genius in the
matters of seamanship and navigation filled him with speechless
wonder. The girls he had been used to were clever only in their
knowledge of the amenities of an afternoon call or the formalities
of a paper german. A girl of two-and-twenty who could calculate
longitude from the altitude of a star was outside his experience.
|
