| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: confidence is better than alarm; better to be a freeman than a slave;
better to be worshipped than pay court to others; better to be trusted
than to be suspected by one's country.
Well now, I will tell you how it fared with me in this same city when
I was wealthy. First, I lived in daily terror lest some burglar should
break into my house and steal my goods and do myself some injury. I
cringed before informers.[49] I was obliged to pay these people court,
because I knew that I could injure them far less than they could
injure me. Never-ending the claims upon my pocket which the state
enforced upon me; and as to setting foot abroad, that was beyond the
range of possibility. But now that I have lost my property across the
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: cab.
"Tell me all about America," said Margaret. "I feel as though you'd
been away six year's."
We went arm in arm into our little sitting-room, and I took off the
fur's for her and sat down upon the chintz-covered sofa by the fire.
She had ordered tea, and came and sat by me. I don't know what I
had expected, but of all things I had certainly not expected this
sudden abolition of our distances.
"I want to know all about America," she repeated, with her eyes
scrutinising me. "Why did you come back?"
I repeated the substance of my letters rather lamely, and she sat
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed as "Your
Majesty," by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance.
This, then, being the main idea of "advancement in life," the force
of it applies, for all of us, according to our station, particularly
to that secondary result of such advancement which we call "getting
into good society." We want to get into good society, not that we
may have it, but that we may be seen in it; and our notion of its
goodness depends primarily on its conspicuousness.
Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you
may think an impertinent question? I never can go on with an
address unless I feel, or know, that my audience are either with me
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