| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: port or madeira line, the best in the store. Then I'd bear up for
a toy-store, and lay out twenty dollars in assorted toys for the
piccaninnies; and then to a confectioner's and take in cakes and
pies and fancy bread, and that stuff with the plums in it; and
then to a news-agency and buy all the papers, all the picture
ones for the kids, and all the story papers for the old girl
about the Earl discovering himself to Anna-Mariar and the escape
of the Lady Maude from the private madhouse; and then I'd tell
the fellow to drive home.'
'There ought to be some syrup for the kids,' suggested Herrick;
'they like syrup.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: acquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or soul, of
things or persons, is not attained by accident, but is due to order and
harmonious arrangement. And the soul which has order is better than the
soul which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore
good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate is also just and
brave and pious, and has attained the perfection of goodness and therefore
of happiness, and the intemperate whom you approve is the opposite of all
this and is wretched. He therefore who would be happy must pursue
temperance and avoid intemperance, and if possible escape the necessity of
punishment, but if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this
way states and individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, as the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: lost youngster ready to shoot him on suspicion of some
extravagant treachery. Came ready to shoot! That's good, too! He
was too weary to laugh--and perhaps too sad. Also the danger of
the pistol-shot, which he believed real--the young are
rash--irritated him. The night and the spot were full of
contradictions. It was impossible to say who in this shadowy
warfare was to be an enemy, and who were the allies. So close
were the contacts issuing from this complication of a yachting
voyage, that he seemed to have them all within his breast.
"Shoot me! He is quite up to that trick--damn him. Yet I would
trust him sooner than any man in that yacht."
The Rescue |
