The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: business that one o' them priests gave him to keep him out o'
trouble. I know them Cath'lics. That's how come Frenchy got
permoted an never got a scratch sence he's been in the ranks. Hey,
French! aint I right?" Edmond looked up absently from his letter.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Aint that a charm you got round your neck?"
"It must be, Nick," returned Edmond with a smile. "I don't know
how I could have gone through this year and a half without it."
The letter had made Edmond heart sick and home sick. He
stretched himself on his back and looked straight up at the
blinking stars. But he was not thinking of them nor of anything
 Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to be of
no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and
dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?
MENO: Not virtue, Socrates, but vice.
SOCRATES: Then justice or temperance or holiness, or some other part of
virtue, as would appear, must accompany the acquisition, and without them
the mere acquisition of good will not be virtue.
MENO: Why, how can there be virtue without these?
SOCRATES: And the non-acquisition of gold and silver in a dishonest manner
for oneself or another, or in other words the want of them, may be equally
virtue?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: the school procession, with the gowns he had thought to be so
'tony' long since . . . And at the same time the incomparable
shame of the last evening blazed up in his mind.
'Have it your own way!' he said hoarsely.
'Oh, I knew you would walk up,' said Huish. 'Now for the
letter. There's paper, pens and ink. Sit down and I'll dictyte.'
The captain took a seat and the pen, looked a while helplessly
at the paper, then at Huish. The swing had gone the other way;
there was a blur upon his eyes. 'It's a dreadful business,' he
said, with a strong twitch of his shoulders.
'It's rather a start, no doubt,' said Huish. 'Tyke a dip of ink.
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