| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: are in danger of falling from age, or when the foundations are insecure.
With this before me by way of example, I was persuaded that it would
indeed be preposterous for a private individual to think of reforming a
state by fundamentally changing it throughout, and overturning it in order
to set it up amended; and the same I thought was true of any similar
project for reforming the body of the sciences, or the order of teaching
them established in the schools: but as for the opinions which up to that
time I had embraced, I thought that I could not do better than resolve at
once to sweep them wholly away, that I might afterwards be in a position
to admit either others more correct, or even perhaps the same when they
had undergone the scrutiny of reason. I firmly believed that in this way I
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: memorized, the chambermaid, who had come to do the bedrooms three times
already and had gone away again, now returned and no longer restrained
her indignation. "Get up Mr. Blake! " she vociferated to the sleeping
John; "you ought to be ashamed!" And she shook the bedstead. Thus John
had come to rise and discover Oscar. The patient tutor explained
himself as John listened in his pyjamas.
"Why, I'm sorry," said he, "but I don't believe they'll get back very
soon."
"They have gone away?" asked Oscar, sharply.
"Ah--yes," returned the reticent John. "An unexpected matter of
importance."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: and have scarcely enough faith in her as yet to tell her such
things as I have told you. Still, there is a consoling dash of
romance in the transaction. Agatha has charm. Do you not think
so?"
Gertrude's emotion was gone. She replied with cool scorn, "Very
romantic indeed. She is very fortunate."
Trefusis half laughed, half sighed with relief to find her so
self-possessed. "It sounds like--and indeed is--the selfish
calculation of a disilluded widower. You would not value such an
offer, or envy the recipient of it?"
"No," said Gertrude with quiet contempt.
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