| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: our lives at sea, and the art of the general in war?
Quite so.
And yet, my dear Critias, none of these things will be well or beneficially
done, if the science of the good be wanting.
True.
But that science is not wisdom or temperance, but a science of human
advantage; not a science of other sciences, or of ignorance, but of good
and evil: and if this be of use, then wisdom or temperance will not be of
use.
And why, he replied, will not wisdom be of use? For, however much we
assume that wisdom is a science of sciences, and has a sway over other
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: Beranger, Casimir Delavigne, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo; as for
Canalis--he is a poet made by sheer force of writing him up."
Lucien felt that he lacked the courage to hold up his head and show
his spirit before all these influential persons, who were laughing
with all their might. He knew very well that he should look hopelessly
ridiculous, and yet he felt consumed by a fierce desire to catch the
bookseller by the throat, to ruffle the insolent composure of his
cravat, to break the gold chain that glittered on the man's chest,
trample his watch under his feet, and tear him in pieces. Mortified
vanity opened the door to thoughts of vengeance, and inwardly he swore
eternal enmity to that bookseller. But he smiled amiably.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: Festina lente may well be his motto."
"I fail to understand," said Harker wearily. "Oh, do be more plain to me!
Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain."
The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke,
"Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late,
this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally.
How he has been making use of the zoophagous patient to effect
his entry into friend John's home. For your Vampire,
though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will,
must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate.
But these are not his most important experiments.
Dracula |
