| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: whether these things are useful and a part of wealth or not. But what
shall we say to another question: Which is the happier and better man,--he
who requires the greatest quantity of necessaries for body and diet, or he
who requires only the fewest and least? The answer will perhaps become
more obvious if we suppose some one, comparing the man himself at different
times, to consider whether his condition is better when he is sick or when
he is well?
CRITIAS: That is not a question which needs much consideration.
SOCRATES: Probably, I said, every one can understand that health is a
better condition than disease. But when have we the greatest and the most
various needs, when we are sick or when we are well?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: that flowery way in which one does not walk, but where one sways and
at the same time does not lapse.
Such a state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the
feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing
similar. The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that
which is produced by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first
view, appears to be covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the
firmament seems black, the intensity of light is like darkness. With
Henri, as with the Spanish girl, there was an equal intensity of
feeling; and that law of statics, in virtue of which two identical
forces cancel each other, might have been true also in the moral
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: is, it seems, their custom, and shouted twice, in token of their
victory; after which, they had the mortification to see several of
their wounded men fall, dying with the mere loss of blood.
The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up together upon
a rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded, would have had them
march and charge again all together at once: but the Spaniard
replied, "Seignior Atkins, you see how their wounded men fight; let
them alone till morning; all the wounded men will be stiff and sore
with their wounds, and faint with the loss of blood; and so we
shall have the fewer to engage." This advice was good: but Will
Atkins replied merrily, "That is true, seignior, and so shall I
Robinson Crusoe |
