| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: seem to know better."
"Well, ma'am, I've played square and owned up to yu'. And that's
not what you're doin' by me. I ask your pardon if I say what I
have a right to say in language not as good as I'd like to talk
to yu' with. But at South Fork Crossin' who did any introducin'?
Did yu' complain I was a stranger then?"
"I--no!" she flashed out; then, quite sweetly, "The driver told
me it wasn't REALLY so dangerous there, you know."
"That's not the point I'm makin'. You are a grown-up woman, a
responsible woman. You've come ever so far, and all alone, to a
rough country to instruct young children that play games,--tag,
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: "Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's
genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart,
the young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But
Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think
her the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have.
She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing.
She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse,
because undesigned. Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can
Emma imagine she has any thing to learn herself, while Harriet
is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet,
I will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance.
Emma |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: existed at all in Alexandria, in that same modern acceptation. Ritter,
I think, it is who complains naively enough, that the Alexandrian
Neoplatonists had a bad habit, which grew on them more and more as the
years rolled on, of mixing up philosophy with theology, and so defiling,
or at all events colouring, its pure transparency. There is no denying
the imputation, as I shall show at greater length in my next Lecture.
But one would have thought, looking back through history, that the
Alexandrians were not the only philosophers guilty of this shameful act
of syncretism. Plato, one would have thought, was as great a sinner as
they. So were the Hindoos. In spite of all their logical and
metaphysical acuteness, they were, you will find, unable to get rid of
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