| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: with a whole troop of flaxenhaired little children to keep
them occupied, besides the business of their large estate.
Our intercourse is arranged on lines of the most
beautiful simplicity. I call on her once a year, and she
returns the call a fortnight later; they ask us to dinner
in the summer, and we ask them to dinner in the winter.
By strictly keeping to this, we avoid all danger of that closer
friendship which is only another name for frequent quarrels.
She is a pattern of what a German country lady should be,
and is not only a pretty woman but an energetic and practical one,
and the combination is, <39> to say the least, effective.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and
proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the commencement of Book
VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way
upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge,
exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly
won by a great effort of thought in the previous discussion; at the same
time casting a glance onward at the dialectical process, which is
represented by the way leading from darkness to light. The shadows, the
images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun
themselves, severally correspond,--the first, to the realm of fancy and
poetry,--the second, to the world of sense,--the third, to the abstractions
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: rupees eight annas a month; but she felt the disgrace to the family
very keenly all the same.
However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought
herself to overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the
marriage of her daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele
should have at least fifty rupees a month to start married life
upon. This wonderful prudence must have been a lingering touch of
the mythical plate-layer's Yorkshire blood; for across the
Borderline people take a pride in marrying when they please--not
when they can.
Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as
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