| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: while, and by that time there were left one hundred and fifty-five
parthenogenetic women, founding a new race.
They inherited all that the devoted care of that declining band
of original ones could leave them. Their little country was quite safe.
Their farms and gardens were all in full production. Such industries
as they had were in careful order. The records of their past were
all preserved, and for years the older women had spent their time
in the best teaching they were capable of, that they might leave
to the little group of sisters and mothers all they possessed of
skill and knowledge.
There you have the start of Herland! One family, all
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation,
undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to
the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the
proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more
than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the
fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the
hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been subjected by the laws of
his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a
thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley (Prose Works) is of
opinion that Socrates 'did well to die,' but not for the 'sophistical'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: While the horse was being harnessed the talk returned to the
point at which it had stopped when Vasili Andreevich drove up
to the window. The old man had been complaining to his
neighbour, the village elder, about his third son who had not
sent him anything for the holiday though he had sent a French
shawl to his wife.
'The young people are getting out of hand,' said the old man.
'And how they do!' said the neighbour. 'There's no managing
them! They know too much. There's Demochkin now, who broke
his father's arm. It's all from being too clever, it seems.'
Nikita listened, watched their faces, and evidently would have
Master and Man |
