| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: "The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which is constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes--
A sentiment open to doubt.
"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
And those that have whiskers, and scratch.
"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums--" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them, though he also
criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others are always talking
about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and that they are not
peculiar to himself (Phaedo; Republic; Soph.). But in his later writings
he seems to have laid aside the old forms of them. As he proceeds he makes
for himself new modes of expression more akin to the Aristotelian logic.
Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common meaning
or spirit which pervades his writings, both those in which he treats of the
ideas and those in which he is silent about them. This is the spirit of
idealism, which in the history of philosophy has had many names and taken
many forms, and has in a measure influenced those who seemed to be most
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "No, sir, I assure you," muttered Raoul, "it is not."
"Oh, no, no, I declare it is not!" cried the young girl,
while Raoul turned pale at the idea of his being perhaps the
cause of her disaster.
"Nevertheless, Raoul, you must go to Blois and you must make
your excuses and mine to Madame de Saint-Remy."
The youth looked pleased. He again took in his strong arms
the little girl, whose pretty golden head and smiling face
rested on his shoulder, and placed her gently in the
carriage; then jumping on his horse with the elegance of a
first-rate esquire, after bowing to Athos and D'Artagnan, he
Twenty Years After |
