| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: remember right, by a distinction of colours in ribbons, which we
might do with as good a grace about the dignity of the blue and the
green, and serve as properly to divide the Court, the Parliament,
and the kingdom between them, as any terms of art whatsoever,
borrowed from religion. And therefore I think there is little
force in this objection against Christianity, or prospect of so
great an advantage as is proposed in the abolishing of it.
It is again objected, as a very absurd, ridiculous custom, that a
set of men should be suffered, much less employed and hired, to
bawl one day in seven against the lawfulness of those methods most
in use towards the pursuit of greatness, riches, and pleasure,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Thin would not count among his minions
A man of Wesleyan opinions.
'Money is money,' so he said.
'Crescents are crescents, trade is trade.
Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons
Built, I believe, for different reasons -
Charity, glory, piety, pride -
To pay the men, to please a bride,
To use their stone, to spite their neighbours,
Not for a profit on their labours.
They built to edify or bewilder;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: development of character. In the Lysis and Charmides the youths are the
central figures, and frequent allusions are made to the place of meeting,
which is a palaestra. Here the place of meeting, which is also a
palaestra, is quite forgotten, and the boys play a subordinate part. The
seance is of old and elder men, of whom Socrates is the youngest.
First is the aged Lysimachus, who may be compared with Cephalus in the
Republic, and, like him, withdraws from the argument. Melesias, who is
only his shadow, also subsides into silence. Both of them, by their own
confession, have been ill-educated, as is further shown by the circumstance
that Lysimachus, the friend of Sophroniscus, has never heard of the fame of
Socrates, his son; they belong to different circles. In the Meno their
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