| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: Callicles agree to this division? Callicles will agree to anything, in
order that he may get through the argument. Which of the arts then are
flatteries? Flute-playing, harp-playing, choral exhibitions, the
dithyrambics of Cinesias are all equally condemned on the ground that they
give pleasure only; and Meles the harp-player, who was the father of
Cinesias, failed even in that. The stately muse of Tragedy is bent upon
pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry in general is only a rhetorical
address to a mixed audience of men, women, and children. And the orators
are very far from speaking with a view to what is best; their way is to
humour the assembly as if they were children.
Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others have a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: timed her turns so strangely?" said Varney. "We can ill afford
to spare any of our actors."
"GAUDET NOMINE SIBYLLAE," said the first speaker; "she is called
Sibyl Laneham, wife of Master Robert Laneham--"
"Clerk to the Council-chamber door," said Varney; "why, she is
inexcusable, having had experience how to have ordered her
matters better. But who were those, a man and a woman, I think,
who rode so hastily up the hill before me even now? Do they
belong to your company?"
Wayland was about to hazard a reply to this alarming inquiry,
when the little diablotin again thrust in his oar.
Kenilworth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: success to have some closer communication with him. The special
circumstances would surely be held to have given me a right to
introduce them. Corvick immediately replied that he had no wish to
approach the altar before he had prepared the sacrifice. He quite
agreed with our friend both as to the delight and as to the honour
of the chase - he would bring down the animal with his own rifle.
When I asked him if Miss Erme were as keen a shot he said after
thinking: "No, I'm ashamed to say she wants to set a trap. She'd
give anything to see him; she says she requires another tip. She's
really quite morbid about it. But she must play fair - she SHAN'T
see him!" he emphatically added. I wondered if they hadn't even
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