| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: the desks in old counting-houses are worn by the elbows of
generations of clerks. The generations of his nervous moods had
been at work there, and the place was the written history of his
whole middle life. Under the impression of what his friend had
just said he knew himself, for some reason, more aware of these
things; which made him, after a moment, stop again before her. "Is
it possibly that you've grown afraid?"
"Afraid?" He thought, as she repeated the word, that his question
had made her, a little, change colour; so that, lest he should have
touched on a truth, he explained very kindly: "You remember that
that was what you asked ME long ago--that first day at Weatherend."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: She still pursued me. "You will observe, monsieur, and tell me
what you think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than
on my own; women cannot judge of these things as men can, and,
excuse my pertinacity, monsieur, but it is natural I should feel
interested about this poor little girl (pauvre petite); she has
scarcely any relations, her own efforts are all she has to look
to, her acquirements must be her sole fortune; her present
position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is then but natural
I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see the
difficulty she has in managing pupils, I reel quite chagrined. I
doubt not she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but,
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: right actions tend to happiness, but that they tend to happiness in the
same degree in which they are right (and in that case the word 'right' is
plainer), we weaken the absoluteness of our moral standard; we reduce
differences in kind to differences in degree; we obliterate the stamp which
the authority of ages has set upon vice and crime.
Once more: turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of
retaining the received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth,
justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning; they have become
sacred to us,--'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other
words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them
adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of
|
