| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Proximo die instituto suo Caesar ex castris utrisque copias suas
eduxit paulumque a maioribus castris progressus aciem instruxit
hostibusque pugnandi potestatem fecit. Ubi ne tum quidem eos prodire
intellexit, circiter meridiem exercitum in castra reduxit. Tum demum
Ariovistus partem suarum copiarum, quae castra minora oppugnaret, misit.
Acriter utrimque usque ad vesperum pugnatum est. Solis occasu suas copias
Ariovistus multis et inlatis et acceptis vulneribus in castra reduxit.
Cum ex captivis quaereret Caesar quam ob rem Ariovistus proelio non
decertaret, hanc reperiebat causam, quod apud Germanos ea consuetudo esset
ut matres familiae eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus declararent utrum
proelium committi ex usu esset necne; eas ita dicere: non esse fas
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: telling things that the world would laugh at."
"All secrets demand, in order to be told, a friendship of which I am
no doubt unworthy, madame. But you cannot have any but noble secrets;
do you think me capable of jesting on noble things?"
"Yes," she said, "you, like all the rest, laugh at our purest
sentiments; you calumniate them. Besides, I have no secrets. I have
the right to love my husband in the face of all the world, and I say
so,--I am proud of it; and if you laugh at me when I tell you that I
dance only with him, I shall have a bad opinion of your heart."
"Have you never danced since your marriage with any one but your
husband?"
Ferragus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: time the knowledge of the best course of action:--and the best and the
useful are surely the same?--
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES:--Such an one, I say, we should call wise and a useful adviser
both of himself and of the city. What do you think?
ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And if any one knows how to ride or to shoot with the bow or to
box or to wrestle, or to engage in any other sort of contest or to do
anything whatever which is in the nature of an art,--what do you call him
who knows what is best according to that art? Do you not speak of one who
knows what is best in riding as a good rider?
|
