| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: view, grow up and run, with mechanical obedience, the farm he
abhorred? The very possibility made her shudder. If only she
could rescue him in some manner, help him to break free from this
bondage. College--that would be the open avenue. Martin would
insist upon an agricultural course, but she would use all her
tact and rally all her powers that Billy might be given the
opportunity to fit himself for some congenial occupation. Martin
might even die, and if she were to have the farm to sell and the
interest from the investments to live on, how happy she could be
with this son of hers, so like her in temperament. She caught
herself up sharply. Well, it was Martin himself who was driving
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one
interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotchman is vain,
interested in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth
his thoughts and experience in the best light. The egoism of the
Englishman is self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He
takes no interest in Scotland or the Scotch, and, what is the
unkindest cut of all, he does not care to justify his indifference.
Give him the wages of going on and being an Englishman, that is all
he asks; and in the meantime, while you continue to associate, he
would rather not be reminded of your baser origin. Compared with
the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his demeanour, the vanity
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: political wisdom; but no one ever heard that these sons of theirs were
remarkable for anything except riding and wrestling and similar
accomplishments. Anytus is angry at the imputation which is cast on his
favourite statesmen, and on a class to which he supposes himself to belong;
he breaks off with a significant hint. The mention of another opportunity
of talking with him, and the suggestion that Meno may do the Athenian
people a service by pacifying him, are evident allusions to the trial of
Socrates.
Socrates returns to the consideration of the question 'whether virtue is
teachable,' which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of
it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the rest of the world do not
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