| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: Clearly we have not yet answered the question, What is wealth?
That wealth must be useful, to be wealth at all,--thus much is acknowledged
by every one. But what particular thing is wealth, if not all things? Let
us pursue the argument in another way; and then we may perhaps find what we
are seeking. What is the use of wealth, and for what purpose has the
possession of riches been invented,--in the sense, I mean, in which drugs
have been discovered for the cure of disease? Perhaps in this way we may
throw some light on the question. It appears to be clear that whatever
constitutes wealth must be useful, and that wealth is one class of useful
things; and now we have to enquire, What is the use of those useful things
which constitute wealth? For all things probably may be said to be useful
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and see the place where I was born, and where I lived so long;
the place where I was so magnificently happy, so exquisitely wretched,
so close to heaven, so near to hell, always either up on a cloud of glory,
or down in the depths with the waters of despair closing over my head?
Cousins live in it now, distant cousins, loved with the exact measure
of love usually bestowed on cousins who reign in one's stead;
cousins of practical views, who have dug up the flower-beds and
planted cabbages where roses grew; and though through all the years
since my father's death I have held my head so high that it hurt,
and loftily refused to listen to their repeated suggestions that I
should revisit my old home, something in the sad listlessness of
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: had all at once given up the ghost; another king had mounted
the throne; a royal duke had died suddenly,--another, in
France, had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in
all parts of the kingdom; the bloody scenes at Manchester; the
great plot of Cato Street; and above all, the queen had returned
to England! All these sinister events are recounted by Mr.
Skryme, with a mysterious look, and a dismal shake of the
head; and being taken with his drugs, and associated in the
minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, bottled
serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page of
tribulation, they have spread great gloom through the minds of
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