| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: Statesman we know that his hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians
was not mitigated in later life; although both in the Statesman and Laws he
admits of a higher use of rhetoric.
Reasons have been already given for assigning a late date to the Philebus.
That the date is probably later than that of the Republic, may be further
argued on the following grounds:--1. The general resemblance to the later
dialogues and to the Laws: 2. The more complete account of the nature of
good and pleasure: 3. The distinction between perception, memory,
recollection, and opinion which indicates a great progress in psychology;
also between understanding and imagination, which is described under the
figure of the scribe and the painter. A superficial notion may arise that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: He gave a perplexed smile, shaking his head over it. "Sometimes I think
civilization costs--"
"Civilization costs all you've got!" I cried.
"More than I've got!" he declared. "I'm mortal tired of civilization."
"Ah, yes! What male creature is not? And neither of us will live quite
long enough to see the smash-up of our own."
"Aren't you sometimes inconsistent?" he inquired, laughing.
"I hope so," I returned. "Consistency is a form of death. The dead are
the only perfectly consistent people."
"And sometimes you sound like a Socialist," he pursued, still laughing.
"Never!" I shouted. "Don't class me with those untrained puppies of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: she naturally fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance,
and on Charles's leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove's
history of Louisa, and to Henrietta's of herself, giving opinions
on business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help
which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts;
from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying
to convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary,
well amused as she generally was, in her station at a window
overlooking the entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have
her moments of imagining.
A morning of thorough confusion was to be expected. A large party
Persuasion |
