| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been
before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over.
But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the
stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his
ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to
claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the
unmistakable print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple
of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the
granite ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in
centaurs, griffins, and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures
on the celestial globe of the moderns. Gliding among them, old
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: fashion the person, if not to refine the mind. Besides, the common
civility of speech, contrasted with the gross vulgarity to which
I had been accustomed, was something like the polish of civilization.
I was not shut out from all intercourse of humanity. Still I was
galled by the yoke of service, and my mistress often flying into
violent fits of passion, made me dread a sudden dismission, which
I understood was always the case. I was therefore prevailed on,
though I felt a horror of men, to accept the offer of a gentleman,
rather in the decline of years, to keep his house, pleasantly
situated in a little village near Hampstead.
"He was a man of great talents, and of brilliant wit; but, a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: nothing: they knew little or nothing, and imagined that they knew all
things. Thus he had passed his life as a sort of missionary in detecting
the pretended wisdom of mankind; and this occupation had quite absorbed him
and taken him away both from public and private affairs. Young men of the
richer sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, 'which was not
unamusing.' And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of
knowledge had revenged themselves by calling him a villainous corrupter of
youth, and by repeating the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and
sophistry, which are the stock-accusations against all philosophers when
there is nothing else to be said of them.
The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who is present and
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