| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: the new art, which he describes as the gymnastics of war--useful when the
ranks are formed, and still more useful when they are broken; creating a
general interest in military studies, and greatly adding to the appearance
of the soldier in the field. Laches, the blunt warrior, is of opinion that
such an art is not knowledge, and cannot be of any value, because the
Lacedaemonians, those great masters of arms, neglect it. His own
experience in actual service has taught him that these pretenders are
useless and ridiculous. This man Stesilaus has been seen by him on board
ship making a very sorry exhibition of himself. The possession of the art
will make the coward rash, and subject the courageous, if he chance to make
a slip, to invidious remarks. And now let Socrates be taken into counsel.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: beautiful women in Paris; but at that time a man would have endured
death to win one of her glances. She had been left with an amount of
fortune sufficient for a woman who had loved and was adored; but the
Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate
in comparison with her name. In my position I was so fatuous as never
to dream of a suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a
hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in
me as gold in the nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me
if I had been so base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel--so
fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose
blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: this time he consented, and they went together towards their
canoe, Almayer leading. For all his firmness he looked very
dejected and feeble as he dragged his feet slowly through the
sand on the beach; and by his side--invisible to Ali--stalked
that particular fiend whose mission it is to jog the memories of
men, lest they should forget the meaning of life. He whispered
into Almayer's ear a childish prattle of many years ago.
Almayer, his head bent on one side, seemed to listen to his
invisible companion, but his face was like the face of a man that
has died struck from behind--a face from which all feelings and
all expression are suddenly wiped off by the hand of unexpected
Almayer's Folly |
