| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: words before! I am equally confounded at HER impudence and HIS credulity.
How dared he believe what she told him in my disfavour! Ought he not to
have felt assured that I must have unanswerable motives for all that I had
done? Where was his reliance on my sense and goodness then? Where the
resentment which true love would have dictated against the person defaming
me--that person, too, a chit, a child, without talent or education, whom he
had been always taught to despise? I was calm for some time; but the
greatest degree of forbearance may be overcome, and I hope I was afterwards
sufficiently keen. He endeavoured, long endeavoured, to soften my
resentment; but that woman is a fool indeed who, while insulted by
accusation, can be worked on by compliments. At length he left me, as
Lady Susan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: carpet. The frock coat, soaked by many a down-pour, with its
brandebourgs, the frogs of which were indiscreet enough to show their
skeletons, testified by its cut to departed elegance. The satin stock-
cravat fortunately concealed the shirt, but the tongue of the buckle
behind the neck had frayed the satin, which was re-satined, that is,
re-polished, by a species of oil distilled from the wig. In the days
of its youth the waistcoat was not, of course, without freshness, but
it was one of those waistcoats, bought for four francs, which come
from the hooks of the ready-made clothing dealer. All these things
were carefully brushed, and so was the shiny and misshapen hat. They
harmonized with each other, even to the black gloves which covered the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: anything else; if a man is better able than we are to promote virtue ever
so little, we must be content with the result. A teacher of this sort I
believe myself to be, and above all other men to have the knowledge which
makes a man noble and good; and I give my pupils their money's-worth, and
even more, as they themselves confess. And therefore I have introduced the
following mode of payment:--When a man has been my pupil, if he likes he
pays my price, but there is no compulsion; and if he does not like, he has
only to go into a temple and take an oath of the value of the instructions,
and he pays no more than he declares to be their value.
Such is my Apologue, Socrates, and such is the argument by which I
endeavour to show that virtue may be taught, and that this is the opinion
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