| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: dialogue: What is the truth, or correctness, or principle of names?
After illustrating the nature of correctness by the analogy of the arts,
and then, as in the Republic, ironically appealing to the authority of the
Homeric poems, Socrates shows that the truth or correctness of names can
only be ascertained by an appeal to etymology. The truth of names is to be
found in the analysis of their elements. But why does he admit etymologies
which are absurd, based on Heracleitean fancies, fourfold interpretations
of words, impossible unions and separations of syllables and letters?
1. The answer to this difficulty has been already anticipated in part:
Socrates is not a dogmatic teacher, and therefore he puts on this wild and
fanciful disguise, in order that the truth may be permitted to appear: 2.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: who was in the kitchen at the moment watching the cook and the
coachman playing a puzzling hand at cards, Monsieur de Merret made his
way to his wife's room by the light of his lantern, which he set down
at the lowest step of the stairs. His step, easy to recognize, rang
under the vaulted passage.
"At the instant when the gentleman turned the key to enter his wife's
room, he fancied he heard the door shut of the closet of which I have
spoken; but when he went in, Madame de Merret was alone, standing in
front of the fireplace. The unsuspecting husband fancied that Rosalie
was in the cupboard; nevertheless, a doubt, ringing in his ears like a
peal of bells, put him on his guard; he looked at his wife, and read
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: uttered a sound of impatience, and I felt sure that but for this I
should have had the secret. Then the intruder, for some reason,
spared us his company; we started afresh, and my hope of a
disclosure returned. My companion held his tongue, however, and I
pretended to go to sleep; in fact I really dozed for
discouragement. When I reopened my eyes he was looking at me with
an injured air. He tossed away with some vivacity the remnant of a
cigarette and then said: "If you're not too sleepy I want to put
you a case." I answered that I'd make every effort to attend, and
welcomed the note of interest when he went on: "As I told you a
while ago, Lady Coxon, poor dear, is demented." His tone had much
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