| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: It is apt to put one on the same footing as brushing a man's coat for
him--a little daring, naive.
I longed to know why he sat alone, why he carried the bag, what he did all
day. But he himself volunteered some information.
"I fear," he said, "that my luggage will be damp. I invariably carry it
with me in this bag--one requires so little--for servants are
untrustworthy."
"A wise idea," I answered. And then: "Why have you denied us the
pleasure--"
"I sit alone that I may eat more," said the Baron, peering into the dusk;
"my stomach requires a great deal of food. I order double portions, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: ground for thinking them so: when all but one are spurious, overwhelming
evidence is required of the genuineness of the one: when they are all
similar in style or motive, like witnesses who agree in the same tale, they
stand or fall together. But no one, not even Mr. Grote, would maintain
that all the Epistles of Plato are genuine, and very few critics think that
more than one of them is so. And they are clearly all written from the
same motive, whether serious or only literary. Nor is there an example in
Greek antiquity of a series of Epistles, continuous and yet coinciding with
a succession of events extending over a great number of years.
The external probability therefore against them is enormous, and the
internal probability is not less: for they are trivial and unmeaning,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: "She is, you are aware, a woman of most munificent disposition,
and happily in possession--not I presume of great wealth, but of
funds which she can well spare. She has informed me that though
she has destined the chief part of those funds to another purpose,
she is willing to consider whether she cannot fully take my place
in relation to the Hospital. But she wishes for ample time to mature
her thoughts on the subject, and I have told her that there is no need
for haste--that, in fact, my own plans are not yet absolute."
Lydgate was ready to say, "If Mrs. Casaubon would take your place,
there would be gain, instead of loss." But there was still
a weight on his mind which arrested this cheerful candor.
Middlemarch |
