| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: Sophist, by the method of dichotomy, gives an opportunity for many humorous
and satirical remarks. Several of the jests are mannered and laboured:
for example, the turn of words with which the dialogue opens; or the clumsy
joke about man being an animal, who has a power of two-feet--both which are
suggested by the presence of Theodorus, the geometrician. There is
political as well as logical insight in refusing to admit the division of
mankind into Hellenes and Barbarians: 'if a crane could speak, he would in
like manner oppose men and all other animals to cranes.' The pride of the
Hellene is further humbled, by being compared to a Phrygian or Lydian.
Plato glories in this impartiality of the dialectical method, which places
birds in juxtaposition with men, and the king side by side with the bird-
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: disturbed its equanimity.
He sat down to the card-table. Adelaide took side with the
painter, saying that he did not know piquet, and needed a
partner.
All through the game Madame de Rouville and her daughter
exchanged looks of intelligence, which alarmed Hippolyte all the
more because he was winning; but at last a final hand left the
lovers in the old lady's debt.
To feel for some money in his pocket the painter took his hands
off the table, and he then saw before him a purse which Adelaide
had slipped in front of him without his noticing it; the poor
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: deserves careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used;
there are people who will say they love new potatoes; there are a
multitude of loves of different colours and values. There is the
love of a mother for her child, there is the love of brothers, there
is the love of youth and maiden, and the love of husband and wife,
there is illicit love and the love one bears one's home or one's
country, there are dog-lovers and the loves of the Olympians, and
love which is a passion of jealousy. Love is frequently a mere
blend of appetite and preference; it may be almost pure greed; it
may have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit self-forgetful nor
generous. It is possible so to phrase things that the furtive
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