| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: drudgery, my longing to write, to make myself a name--I stammered
out an entreaty for a loan. 'I can guarantee to repay you, sir--
I've a half-written play as security. . .'
"I shall never forget his glassy stare. His face had grown as
smooth as an egg-shell again--his eyes peered over his fat cheeks
like sentinels over a slippery rampart.
"'A half-written play--a play of YOURS as security?' He looked
at me almost fearfully, as if detecting the first symptoms of
insanity. 'Do you understand anything of business?' he enquired
mildly. I laughed and answered: 'No, not much.'
"He leaned back with closed lids. 'All this excitement has been
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Apology describes Socrates' state of mind at
his trial and execution, and especially his view
that it was better to die before senility set in
than to escape execution by humbling himself be-
fore an unjust persecution. Xenophon was away at
the time, involved in the events of the march of
the ten thousand.
The Apology |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: brightened by the pleasures of good living and devoid of serious
ideas, with a veil which simulated thought. It was but the skeleton of
the old Birotteau who had rolled only one year earlier so vacuous but
so content along the Cloister. The bishop cast one look of pity and
contempt upon his victim; then he consented to forget him, and went
his way.
There is no doubt that Troubert would have been in other times a
Hildebrand or an Alexander the Sixth. In these days the Church is no
longer a political power, and does not absorb the whole strength of
her solitaries. Celibacy, however, presents the inherent vice of
concentating the faculties of man upon a single passion, egotism,
|
