| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: characteristically, (1) 'Quietness.' 'But Temperance is a fine and noble
thing; and quietness in many or most cases is not so fine a thing as
quickness.' He tries again and says (2) that temperance is modesty. But
this again is set aside by a sophistical application of Homer: for
temperance is good as well as noble, and Homer has declared that 'modesty
is not good for a needy man.' (3) Once more Charmides makes the attempt.
This time he gives a definition which he has heard, and of which Socrates
conjectures that Critias must be the author: 'Temperance is doing one's
own business.' But the artisan who makes another man's shoes may be
temperate, and yet he is not doing his own business; and temperance defined
thus would be opposed to the division of labour which exists in every
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: reverence. And then come jugglers and enchanters, that do many
marvels; for they make to come in the air, by seeming, the sun and
the moon to every man's sight. And after they make the night so
dark that no man may see nothing. And after they make the day to
come again, fair and pleasant with bright sun, to every man's
sight. And then they bring in dances of the fairest damsels of the
world, and richest arrayed. And after they make to come in other
damsels bringing cups of gold full of milk of diverse beasts, and
give drink to lords and to ladies. And then they make knights to
joust in arms full lustily; and they run together a great random,
and they frussch together full fiercely, and they break their
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: that bears any resemblance. This tree, which the natives call
ensete, is wonderfully useful; its leaves, which are so large as to
cover a man, make hangings for rooms, and serve the inhabitants
instead of linen for their tables and carpets. They grind the
branches and the thick parts of the leaves, and when they are
mingled with milk, find them a delicious food. The trunk and the
roots are even more nourishing than the leaves or branches, and the
meaner people, when they go a journey, make no provision of any
other victuals. The word ensete signifies the tree against hunger,
or the poor's tree, though the most wealthy often eat of it. If it
be cut down within half a foot of the ground and several incisions
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