| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: ignorance, for instance, be useful for knowledge, or disease for health, or
vice for virtue?
CRITIAS: Never.
SOCRATES: And yet we have already agreed--have we not?--that there can be
no knowledge where there has not previously been ignorance, nor health
where there has not been disease, nor virtue where there has not been vice?
CRITIAS: I think that we have.
SOCRATES: But then it would seem that the antecedents without which a
thing cannot exist are not necessarily useful to it. Otherwise ignorance
would appear useful for knowledge, disease for health, and vice for virtue.
Critias still showed great reluctance to accept any argument which went to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: buccaneers?
"Suppose they're the devil himself," said divers young politicians,
"they entertain mighty well."
"The Comte de Lanty may have plundered some /Casbah/ for all I care; I
would like to marry his daughter!" cried a philosopher.
Who would not have married Marianina, a girl of sixteen, whose beauty
realized the fabulous conceptions of Oriental poets! Like the Sultan's
daughter in the tale of the /Wonderful Lamp/, she should have remained
always veiled. Her singing obscured the imperfect talents of the
Malibrans, the Sontags, and the Fodors, in whom some one dominant
quality always mars the perfection of the whole; whereas Marianina
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: In fact, his behavior had me bursting with curiosity.
The train having started:
"Don't imagine, Petrie," said Smith "that I am trying to lead you
blindfolded in order later to dazzle you with my perspicacity.
I am simply afraid that this may be a wild-goose chase.
The idea upon which I am acting does not seem to have struck you.
I wish it had. The fact would argue in favor of its being, sound."
"At present I am hopelessly mystified."
"Well, then, I will not bias you towards my view.
But just study the situation, and see if you can arrive at
the reason for this sudden journey. I shall be distinctly
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
