| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: 'the world,' but the 'one wise man,' is still the paradox of Socrates in
his last hours. He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may
be fatal to him. The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither
good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral
evil; in his own words, 'they cannot make a man wise or foolish.'
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the
'common principle,' there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is
anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of
Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws in
the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech which
occur in Plato.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: "You read my wife's last words as an accusation"--Inglethorp was
continuing--"they were, on the contrary, an appeal to me."
The Coroner reflected a moment, then he said:
"I believe, Mr. Inglethorp, that you yourself poured out the
coffee, and took it to your wife that evening?"
"I poured it out, yes. But I did not take it to her. I meant to
do so, but I was told that a friend was at the hall door, so I
laid down the coffee on the hall table. When I came through the
hall again a few minutes later, it was gone."
This statement might, or might not, be true, but it did not seem
to me to improve matters much for Inglethorp. In any case, he
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: left lying on the table. It was gone.
In feverish haste Kent looked under the table, under the chairs, the
lounge and its cushions, behind the draperies, and even under the
rugs which covered the floor of the porch, and then rose and
stared into the dining room. Which one of his companions had taken
the envelope?
Outside the porch the beautiful trumpet vine, its sturdy trunk and
thick branches reaching almost to the roof of the club building,
rustled as in a high wind, and the branches swayed this way and that
as a figure climbed swiftly down from the porch until, reaching the
fence separating the club property from its neighbor's, the man
The Red Seal |
