| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: 'Many there were that did his picture get,
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
Like fools that in the imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find
Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;
And labouring in mo pleasures to bestow them,
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:
'So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly suppos'd them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part,)
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a
smile on his face all the time, will get more true education
than many another in a life of heroic vigils. There is
certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the
summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round
about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will
acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life. While others
are filling their memory with a lumber of words, one-half of
which they will forget before the week be out, your truant may
learn some really useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a
good cigar, or to speak with ease and opportunity to all
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: added.
First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme
or plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and
greatest wave come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can
be said of the extravagance of Plato's proposals is anticipated by himself.
Nothing is more admirable than the hesitation with which he proposes the
solemn text, 'Until kings are philosophers,' etc.; or the reaction from the
sublime to the ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the
new truth will be received by mankind.
Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the
communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to
The Republic |
