| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less
disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to
the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established
constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I
think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to
instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely
to become partisans of violence. They are too well aware that to
violence attach enmities and dangers, whereas results as good may be
obtained by persuasion safely and amicably. For the victim of violence
hates with vindictiveness as one from whom something precious has been
stolen, while the willing subject of persuasion is ready to kiss the
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: is with him? All of them? And who nurses him most? Do you go on
duty in turn? And at night, too? He can't get out of bed. Ah,
that's the worst thing of all!
"It will be my turn to die soon; a year sooner or later, what
does it matter? But to lie helpless, a burden to every one, to
have others doing everything for you, lifting you and helping you
to sit up, that's what's so awful.
"And how does he endure it? Got used to it, you say? No; I
cannot imagine having Vera to change my linen and wash me. Of
course she would say that it's nothing to her, but for me it would
be awful.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: hand, turned on the hinges. I saw my landlady come in, a buxom, florid
dame, always good-humored, who had missed her calling in life. She was
a Fleming, who ought to have seen the light in a picture by Teniers.
" 'Well, monsieur,' said she, 'Monsieur Regnault has no doubt been
giving you his history of la Grande Breteche?'
" 'Yes, Madame Lepas.'
" 'And what did he tell you?'
"I repeated in a few words the creepy and sinister story of Madame de
Merret. At each sentence my hostess put her head forward, looking at
me with an innkeeper's keen scrutiny, a happy compromise between the
instinct of a police constable, the astuteness of a spy, and the
La Grande Breteche |
