| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: make or keep a friend may profitably study. (Compare Bacon, Essay on
Friendship; Cic. de Amicitia.)
LYSIS, OR FRIENDSHIP
by
Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, who is the narrator, Menexenus,
Hippothales, Lysis, Ctesippus.
SCENE: A newly-erected Palaestra outside the walls of Athens.
I was going from the Academy straight to the Lyceum, intending to take the
outer road, which is close under the wall. When I came to the postern gate
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: arm and nodding to a tall man. "How pale and grave he is poor man! His
hobby has not trotted to his mind to-day, I fancy."
Andrea's prepossession for Marianna was crossed by the captivating
charm which Gambara could not fail to exert over every genuine artist.
The composer was now forty; but although his high brow was bald and
lined with a few parallel, but not deep, wrinkles; in spite, too, of
hollow temples where the blue veins showed through the smooth,
transparent skin, and of the deep sockets in which his black eyes were
sunk, with their large lids and light lashes, the lower part of his
face made him still look young, so calm was its outline, so soft the
modeling. It could be seen at a glance that in this man passion had
Gambara |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had
proved to be somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon.
Her power was limited, and the consciousness of this
limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was
her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed
much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly
and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her appearance
accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness,
and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real
surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her. A true
Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow, and not factitiously
Return of the Native |
