| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: straight to the city of Rome and the new reign began. It was the
fashion of early Italian painters to represent in mediaeval costume
the soldiers who watched over the tomb of Christ, and this, which
was the result of the frank anachronism of all true art, may serve
to us as an allegory. For it was in vain that the Middle Ages
strove to guard the buried spirit of progress. When the dawn of
the Greek spirit arose, the sepulchre was empty, the grave-clothes
laid aside. Humanity had risen from the dead.
The study of Greek, it has been well said, implies the birth of
criticism, comparison and research. At the opening of that
education of modern by ancient thought which we call the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: quite prostrated. Pretty hard on H- altogether.
"And you, Captain - you are not married I suppose?"
"No, I am not married," I said. "Neither married nor even
engaged."
Mentally I thanked my stars; and while he smiled in a musing,
dreamy fashion, I expressed my acknowledgments for his visit and
for the interesting business information he had been good enough to
impart to me. But I said nothing of my wonder thereat.
"Of course, I would have made a point of calling on you in a day or
two," I concluded.
He raised his eyelids distinctly at me, and somehow managed to look
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the
best and does not know what is best?
ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.
SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let us take another case. Suppose that you were suddenly to get
into your head that it would be a good thing to kill Pericles, your kinsman
and guardian, and were to seize a sword and, going to the doors of his
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