| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: mysteries of these mysterious waters beyond the comprehension of
the oldest licensed pilot ...
There is plunder for all--birds and men. There are drowned sheep
in multitude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of
claret and kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the
surf. There are billiard-tables overturned upon the sand;--there
are sofas, pianos, footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs,
lounges of bamboo. There are chests of cedar, and toilet-tables
of rosewood, and trunks of fine stamped leather stored with
precious apparel. There are objets de luxe innumerable. There
are children's playthings: French dolls in marvellous toilets,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: permitted among us; and when these two customs--one the love of youth, the
other the practice of virtue and philosophy--meet in one, then the lovers
may lawfully unite. Nor is there any disgrace to a disinterested lover in
being deceived: but the interested lover is doubly disgraced, for if he
loses his love he loses his character; whereas the noble love of the other
remains the same, although the object of his love is unworthy: for nothing
can be nobler than love for the sake of virtue. This is that love of the
heavenly goddess which is of great price to individuals and cities, making
them work together for their improvement.
The turn of Aristophanes comes next; but he has the hiccough, and therefore
proposes that Eryximachus the physician shall cure him or speak in his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: are possessed of a knowledge beyond the compre-
hension of the living. I wonder whether the mem-
ory of her compassion prevented him from cutting
his throat. But there! I suppose I am an old sen-
timentalist, and forget the instinctive love of life
which it takes all the strength of an uncommon de-
spair to overcome.
"He did the work which was given him with an
intelligence which surprised old Swaffer. By-and-
by it was discovered that he could help at the
ploughing, could milk the cows, feed the bullocks
Amy Foster |
