| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: the Northwest - Power gravitates in the same direction - Passions
originating from sudden turns of fortune - Whether the existing
Government of the Union tends to gain strength, or to lose it -
Various signs of its decrease - Internal improvements - Waste
lands - Indians - The Bank - The Tariff - General Jackson.
The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several
States depends in some measure upon the maintenance of the Union
itself. It is therefore important in the first instance to
inquire into the probable fate of the Union. One point may
indeed be assumed at once: if the present confederation were
dissolved, it appears to me to be incontestable that the States
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: Very true, he said.
But, then, what is to become of philosophy? Whither shall we turn, if the
ideas are unknown?
I certainly do not see my way at present.
Yes, said Parmenides; and I think that this arises, Socrates, out of your
attempting to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and the ideas
generally, without sufficient previous training. I noticed your
deficiency, when I heard you talking here with your friend Aristoteles, the
day before yesterday. The impulse that carries you towards philosophy is
assuredly noble and divine; but there is an art which is called by the
vulgar idle talking, and which is often imagined to be useless; in that you
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: Strange! I had the impression of an icy blast."
"Ah!" said d'Alcacer.
"Impossible, of course!" went on Mr. Travers. "This stagnating
air never moves. It clings odiously to one. What time is it?"
"Really, I don't know."
"The glass of my watch was smashed on that night when we were so
treacherously assailed by the savages on the sandbank," grumbled
Mr. Travers.
"I must say I was never so surprised in my life," confessed
d'Alcacer. "We had stopped and I was lighting a cigar, you may
remember."
The Rescue |
