| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: to go with these, and one pair of patent-leather shoes that laced, and
whose long soles curved upward at the toe like the rockers of a
summer-hotel chair. These holiday garments served him in all seasons;
and when you saw him dressed in them, and seated in a car bound for Park
Square, you knew he was going into Boston, where he would read
manuscript essays on Botticelli or Pico della Mirandola, or manuscript
translations of Armenian folksongs; read these to ecstatic, dim-eyed
ladies in Newbury Street, who would pour him cups of tea when it was
over, and speak of his earnestness after he was gone. It did not do the
ladies any harm; but I am not sure that it was the best thing for Oscar.
It helped him feel every day, as he stepped along to recitations with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: the refinements of Nicias.
In the discussion of the main thesis of the Dialogue--'What is Courage?'
the antagonism of the two characters is still more clearly brought out; and
in this, as in the preliminary question, the truth is parted between them.
Gradually, and not without difficulty, Laches is made to pass on from the
more popular to the more philosophical; it has never occurred to him that
there was any other courage than that of the soldier; and only by an effort
of the mind can he frame a general notion at all. No sooner has this
general notion been formed than it evanesces before the dialectic of
Socrates; and Nicias appears from the other side with the Socratic
doctrine, that courage is knowledge. This is explained to mean knowledge
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: continuation in a fine scratch in the paint of the floor. Muller
followed up this scratch and it led him over towards the window and
then back again in wide curves, then out again under the desk and
finally, growing weaker and weaker, it came back to the neighbourhood
of the pool of blood, but on the opposite side of it. Muller got
down on his hands and knees to follow up the scratch. He did not
notice the discomfort of his position, his eyes shone in excitement
and a deep flush glowed in his cheeks. Also, he began to whistle
softly.
Joseph Muller, the bloodhound of the Austrian police, had found a
clue, a clue that soon would bring him to the trail he was seeking.
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