| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: intrusted himself and us devoutly to that boy. Yet the boy
was patently fallacious; and for that matter a most
unsympathetic urchin, raised apparently on gingerbread. He
was bent on his own pleasure, nothing else; and Kelmar
followed him to his ruin, with the same shrewd smirk. If the
boy said there was "a hole there in the hill" - a hole, pure
and simple, neither more nor less - Kelmar and his Jew girls
would follow him a hundred yards to look complacently down
that hole. For two hours we looked for houses; and for two
hours they followed us, smelling trees, picking flowers,
foisting false botany on the unwary. Had we taken five, with
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: the excellences and defects of Polygnotus the son of Aglaophon, but
incapable of criticizing other painters; and when the work of any other
painter was produced, went to sleep and was at a loss, and had no ideas;
but when he had to give his opinion about Polygnotus, or whoever the
painter might be, and about him only, woke up and was attentive and had
plenty to say?
ION: No indeed, I have never known such a person.
SOCRATES: Or did you ever know of any one in sculpture, who was skilful in
expounding the merits of Daedalus the son of Metion, or of Epeius the son
of Panopeus, or of Theodorus the Samian, or of any individual sculptor; but
when the works of sculptors in general were produced, was at a loss and
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: Schmucke's head had greased the green Utrecht velvet of the two arm-
chairs and reduced it to a slimy texture. If it had not been for the
cat's magnificent tail, which played a useful part in the household,
the uncovered places on the bureau and the piano would never have been
dusted. In one corner of the room were a pile of shoes which need an
epic to describe them. The top of the bureau and that of the piano
were encumbered by music-books with ragged backs and whitened corners,
through which the pasteboard showed its many layers. Along the walls
the names and addresses of pupils written on scraps of paper were
stuck on by wafers,--the number of wafers without paper indicating the
number of pupils no longer taught. On the wall-papers were many
|
