| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: fuller discussion of the question for another place, I will shortly defend
my opinion by the following arguments:--
(a) Because almost all epistles purporting to be of the classical age of
Greek literature are forgeries. (Compare Bentley's Works (Dyce's
Edition).) Of all documents this class are the least likely to be
preserved and the most likely to be invented. The ancient world swarmed
with them; the great libraries stimulated the demand for them; and at a
time when there was no regular publication of books, they easily crept into
the world.
(b) When one epistle out of a number is spurious, the remainder of the
series cannot be admitted to be genuine, unless there be some independent
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: but unluckily for you, nothing was said in the marriage-contract
about anything that she might come in for."
"It would be very hard if my fortune is to cost some one else his
life," said Victorine. "If I cannot be happy unless my brother is
to be taken out of the world, I would rather stay here all my
life."
"MON DIEU! it is just as that good M. Vautrin says, and he is
full of piety, you see," Mme. Couture remarked. "I am very glad
to find that he is not an unbeliever like the rest of them that
talk of the Almighty with less respect than they do of the Devil.
Well, as he was saying, who can know the ways by which it may
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: ranks of these unproductive beings. Now, if the consciousness of work
done gives to the workers a sense of satisfaction which helps them to
support life, the certainty of being a useless burden must, one would
think, produce a contrary effect, and fill the minds of such fruitless
beings with the same contempt for themselves which they inspire in
others. This harsh social reprobation is one of the causes which
contribute to fill the souls of old maids with the distress that
appears in their faces. Prejudice, in which there is truth, does cast,
throughout the world but especially in France, a great stigma on the
woman with whom no man has been willing to share the blessings or
endure the ills of life. Now, there comes to all unmarried women a
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