| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: all sorts, tried both amid pleasures and pains. Laches replies that this
universal courage is endurance. But courage is a good thing, and mere
endurance may be hurtful and injurious. Therefore (3) the element of
intelligence must be added. But then again unintelligent endurance may
often be more courageous than the intelligent, the bad than the good. How
is this contradiction to be solved? Socrates and Laches are not set 'to
the Dorian mode' of words and actions; for their words are all confusion,
although their actions are courageous. Still they must 'endure' in an
argument about endurance. Laches is very willing, and is quite sure that
he knows what courage is, if he could only tell.
Nicias is now appealed to; and in reply he offers a definition which he has
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: deprived of her young. She will poison me, thought the poor
wretch, well aware of that easy and final manner of solving the
social, political, or family problems in Malay life.
To his great surprise she took the news very quietly, giving only
him and Lingard a furtive glance, and saying not a word. This,
however, did not prevent her the next day from jumping into the
river and swimming after the boat in which Lingard was carrying
away the nurse with the screaming child. Almayer had to give
chase with his whale-boat and drag her in by the hair in the
midst of cries and curses enough to make heaven fall. Yet after
two days spent in wailing, she returned to her former mode of
Almayer's Folly |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: going down.
"Have we got to Lukovo?" asked Pashka, lifting his head lazily.
"Yes. Hold the reins! . . ."
I led the horse down the hill and looked at the village. At the
first glance one strange circumstance caught my attention: at the
very top of the belfry, in the tiny window between the cupola and
the bells, a light was twinkling. This light was like that of a
smoldering lamp, at one moment dying down, at another flickering
up. What could it come from?
Its source was beyond my comprehension. It could not be burning
at the window, for there were neither ikons nor lamps in the top
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
