| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: hand and looked at Alexander blankly.
Hilda was a good story-teller. She was
sitting on the edge of her chair, as if she
had alighted there for a moment only.
Her primrose satin gown seemed like a soft sheath
for her slender, supple figure, and its delicate
color suited her white Irish skin and brown
hair. Whatever she wore, people felt the
charm of her active, girlish body with its
slender hips and quick, eager shoulders.
Alexander heard little of the story, but he
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: inclined to think may arise out of a misapprehension of his own. The
rhetorician has been declared by Gorgias to be more persuasive to the
ignorant than the physician, or any other expert. And he is said to be
ignorant, and this ignorance of his is regarded by Gorgias as a happy
condition, for he has escaped the trouble of learning. But is he as
ignorant of just and unjust as he is of medicine or building? Gorgias is
compelled to admit that if he did not know them previously he must learn
them from his teacher as a part of the art of rhetoric. But he who has
learned carpentry is a carpenter, and he who has learned music is a
musician, and he who has learned justice is just. The rhetorician then
must be a just man, and rhetoric is a just thing. But Gorgias has already
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: importance faithfully to abide by the oath which he had taken, than to
gratify the people wrongfully, or to screen himself from the menaces
of the mighty. The fact being, that with regard to the care bestowed
by the gods upon men, his belief differed widely from that of the
multitude. Whereas most people seem to imagine that the gods know in
part, and are ignorant in part, Socrates believed firmly that the gods
know all things--both the things that are said and the things that are
done, and the things that are counselled in the silent chambers of the
heart. Moreover, they are present everywhere, and bestow signs upon
man concerning all the things of man.
[17] Or "Senate." Lit. "the Boule."
The Memorabilia |
