| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: the few wise?
ALCIBIADES: I was.
SOCRATES: And have we not come back to our old assertion that the many
fail to obtain the best because they trust to opinion which is devoid of
intelligence?
ALCIBIADES: That is the case.
SOCRATES: It is good, then, for the many, if they particularly desire to
do that which they know or suppose that they know, neither to know nor to
suppose that they know, in cases where if they carry out their ideas in
action they will be losers rather than gainers?
ALCIBIADES: What you say is very true.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: the churches and of the houses built on the high bank of
the Yenisei were clearly defined against the evening sky,
and the waters of the river reflected them in the twilight.
"Where are we, sister?" asked Michael.
"Half a verst from the first houses," replied Nadia.
"Can the town be asleep?" observed Michael. "Not a
sound strikes my ear."
"And I cannot see the slightest light, nor even smoke
mounting into the air," added Nadia.
"What a queer town!" said Nicholas. "They make no
noise in it, and go to bed uncommonly early!"
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the favored one. As if to allay their too sanguine hopes, they
recurred to the Indian traditions that a spirit kept watch about
the gem, and bewildered those who sought it either by removing it
from peak to peak of the higher hills, or by calling up a mist
from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But these tales were
deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe that the
search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in
the adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct
the passage to any given point among the intricacies of forest,
valley, and mountain.
In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious
Twice Told Tales |
