| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: on the supposition that the art of words tends to correctness of
statement or to incorrectness that you bid us abstain from it? for if
the former, it is clear we must abstain from speeking correctly, but
if the latter, our endeavour should be to amend our speech.
To which Charicles, in a fit of temper, retorted: In consideration of
your ignorance,[21] Socrates, we will frame the prohibition in
language better suited to your intelligence: we forbid you to hold any
conversation whatsoever with the young.
[21] See Aristot. "de Soph. El." 183 b7.
Then Socrates: To avoid all ambiguity then, or the possibility of my
doing anything else than what you are pleased to command, may I ask
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: to Madame Vernier. "Would you believe it, the good-man insists on
watching his two casks of wine. He has worried me so this whole day,
that I had to show him two full puncheons. Our neighbor, Pierre
Champlain, fortunately had two which he had not sold. I asked him to
kindly let me have them rolled into our cellar; and oh, dear! now that
the good-man has seen them he insists on bottling them off himself!"
Madame Vernier had related the poor woman's trouble to her husband
just before the entrance of Gaudissart, and at the first words of the
famous traveller Vernier determined that he should be made to grapple
with Margaritis.
"Monsieur," said the ex-dyer, as soon as the illustrious Gaudissart
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: a mania; is it crime, is it--"
"Eh, monsieur, there's no one but my father and I who know the real
truth. My late mother was servant in the family of a lawyer to whom
Cambremer told all by order of the priest, who wouldn't give him
absolution until he had done so--at least, that's what the folks of
the port say. My poor mother overheard Cambremer without trying to;
the lawyer's kitchen was close to the office, and that's how she
heard. She's dead, and so is the lawyer. My mother made us promise, my
father and I, not to talk about the matter to the folks of the
neighborhood; but I can tell you my hair stood on end the night she
told us the tale."
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