| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: ION: Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would: for I love
to hear you wise men talk.
SOCRATES: O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so;
but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are
wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speak the truth. For consider
what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this which I have said--a
thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of
a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same. Let us
consider this matter; is not the art of painting a whole?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there are and have been many painters good and bad?
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: "And yet," said Minard, "I can assure you he attaches the greatest
importance to that rubbish, and apropos to his anagrams, as, indeed,
about many other things, he is not a little puffed up. Since their
emigration to the Madeleine quarter it seems to me that not only the
Sieur Colleville, but his wife and daughter, and the Thuilliers and
the whole coterie have assumed an air of importance which is rather
difficult to justify."
"No wonder!" said Phellion; "one must have a pretty strong head to
stand the fumes of opulence. Our friends have become so very rich by
the purchase of that property where they have gone to live that we
ought to forgive them for a little intoxication; and I must say the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: step, a step from which there was no turning back. At
the thought, a sudden fear of her own weakness might
have seized her, and she might have felt that, after all,
it was better to accept the compromise usual in such
cases, and follow the line of least resistance.
An hour earlier, when he had rung Mrs. Mingott's
bell, Archer had fancied that his path was clear before
him. He had meant to have a word alone with Madame
Olenska, and failing that, to learn from her
grandmother on what day, and by which train, she was
returning to Washington. In that train he intended to
|
