| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: drink to our good journey. Your affectionate friend,
"Lydia Bennet."
"Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!" cried Elizabeth when she
had finished it. What a letter is this, to be written at such a
moment! But at least it shows that SHE was serious on the
subject of their journey. Whatever he might afterwards
persuade her to, it was not on her side a SCHEME of
infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!"
I never saw any one so shocked. He could not speak a word
for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and
the whole house in such confusion!"
Pride and Prejudice |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: The reasons why the Charmides, Lysis, Laches have been placed together and
first in the series of Platonic dialogues, are: (i) Their shortness and
simplicity. The Charmides and the Lysis, if not the Laches, are of the
same 'quality' as the Phaedrus and Symposium: and it is probable, though
far from certain, that the slighter effort preceded the greater one. (ii)
Their eristic, or rather Socratic character; they belong to the class
called dialogues of search (Greek), which have no conclusion. (iii) The
absence in them of certain favourite notions of Plato, such as the doctrine
of recollection and of the Platonic ideas; the questions, whether virtue
can be taught; whether the virtues are one or many. (iv) They have a want
of depth, when compared with the dialogues of the middle and later period;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: complete. Something of the same sort is true also of diseases of
the mind. Behind, there remains a legacy of traces and blisters:
and unless these are effectually erased, subsequent blows on the
same spot will produce no longer mere blisters, but sores. If you
do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it
nothing which may tend its increase. At first, keep quiet and
count the days when you were not angry: "I used to be angry every
day, then every other day: next every two, next every three
days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to
the Gods in thanksgiving.
LXXVI
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
