| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: and representation. For if we consider the likenesses which painters make
of bodies divine and heavenly, and the different degrees of gratification
with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are
satisfied with the artist who is able in any degree to imitate the earth
and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the
things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise
about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is
required is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them
forth. But when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick
at finding out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges
of any one who does not render every point of similarity. And we may
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: That is evident, he said.
But then what profit, Critias, I said, is there any longer in wisdom or
temperance which yet remains, if this is wisdom? If, indeed, as we were
supposing at first, the wise man had been able to distinguish what he knew
and did not know, and that he knew the one and did not know the other, and
to recognize a similar faculty of discernment in others, there would
certainly have been a great advantage in being wise; for then we should
never have made a mistake, but have passed through life the unerring guides
of ourselves and of those who are under us; and we should not have
attempted to do what we did not know, but we should have found out those
who knew, and have handed the business over to them and trusted in them;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: How tired the adventurers grow as the day wears away; and as yet
they have taken nothing! But their strength and courage return as
if by magic when there comes a surprising twitch at the line in a
shallow, unpromising rapid, and with a jerk of the pole a small,
wiggling fish is whirled through the air and landed thirty feet
back in the meadow.
"For pity's sake, don't lose him! There he is among the roots of
the blue flag."
"I've got him! How cold he is--how slippery--how pretty! Just
like a piece of rainbow!"
"Do you see the red spots? Did you notice how gamy he was, little
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