| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has good
parts, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily
ignorant of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought
to know; he is inexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language
which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or
public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of
human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake
themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the
politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of
philosophy. For, as Euripides says,
'Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn't want to be one
like Mr. Superintendent Bell."
"It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said
Marilla severely. "Mr. Bell is a real good man."
"Oh, of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to
get any comfort out of it. If I could be good I'd dance and sing
all day because I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too
old to dance and sing and of course it wouldn't be dignified in a
minister's wife. But I can just feel she's glad she's a Christian
and that she'd be one even if she could get to heaven without it."
"I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday
Anne of Green Gables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: (except yourself,--and you not more than I) who has shed so many
tears for Clifford's calamity. You behold some of them now.
There is none who would so delight to promote his happiness!
Try me, Hepzibah! --try me, cousin! --try the man whom you have
treated as your enemy and Clifford's! --try Jaffrey Pyncheon,
and you shall find him true, to the heart's core!"
"In the name of Heaven," cried Hepzibah, provoked only to
intenser indignation by this outgush of the inestimable tenderness
of a stern nature,--"in God's name, whom you insult, and whose
power I could almost question, since he hears you utter so many
false words without palsying your tongue,--give over, I beseech
House of Seven Gables |
