| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: may, you have the right to do as you please; you can choose your own
course. Besides, that is not what brings me here. There is another
thing which may have serious results for you. After all, you can't
wish to kill your wife; her life is too important to you. Think of
your situation in connection with your daughter if Madame Grandet
dies. You must render an account to Eugenie, because you enjoy your
wife's estate only during her lifetime. At her death your daughter can
claim a division of property, and she may force you to sell Froidfond.
In short, she is her mother's heir, and you are not."
These words fell like a thunderbolt on the old man, who was not as
wise about law as he was about business. He had never thought of a
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: Plato, as well as of other great artists. We may hardly admit that the
moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of
knowledge and opinion, being and appearance, are never far off in a
Platonic discussion. But because they are in the background, we should not
bring them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all
the dialogues.
There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines of
the building; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily
exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural form
and connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues are
finished works of art, we may find a reason for everything, and lose the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: sword. And yet, not only did they not all perish, but more rose
by the sword than perished by it, else man would not to-day be
over-running the world in such huge swarms. Also, it must not be
forgotten that they who did not rise by the sword did not rise at
all. They were not. In view of this, there is something wrong
with Doctor Jordan's war-theory, which is to the effect that the
best being sent out to war, only the second best, the men who are
left, remain to breed a second-best race, and that, therefore, the
human race deteriorates under war. If this be so, if we have sent
forth the best we bred and gone on breeding from the men who were
left, and since we have done this for ten thousand millenniums and
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