| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: certitude and evidence of their reasonings; but I had not as yet a
precise knowledge of their true use; and thinking that they but
contributed to the advancement of the mechanical arts, I was astonished
that foundations, so strong and solid, should have had no loftier
superstructure reared on them. On the other hand, I compared the
disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent
palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud: they laud the virtues
very highly, and exhibit them as estimable far above anything on earth;
but they give us no adequate criterion of virtue, and frequently that
which they designate with so fine a name is but apathy, or pride,
or despair, or parricide.
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: great magnificence.
I lived here about a year, and completed my studies in divinity; in
which time some letters were received from the fathers in Aethiopia,
with an account that Sultan Segued, Emperor of Abyssinia, was
converted to the Church of Rome, that many of his subjects had
followed his example, and that there was a great want of
missionaries to improve these prosperous beginnings. Everybody was
very desirous of seconding the zeal of our fathers, and of sending
them the assistance they requested; to which we were the more
encouraged, because the emperor's letters informed our provincial
that we might easily enter his dominions by the way of Dancala, but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: brevity and style over the grotesque wisdom and somewhat mouthing
metaphysics of SARTOR RESARTUS. But I think that from what I have
already said it is quite clear that Shakespeare was very much
interested in costume. I do not mean in that shallow sense by
which it has been concluded from his knowledge of deeds and
daffodils that he was the Blackstone and Paxton of the Elizabethan
age; but that he saw that costume could be made at once impressive
of a certain effect on the audience and expressive of certain types
of character, and is one of the essential factors of the means
which a true illusionist has at his disposal. Indeed to him the
deformed figure of Richard was of as much value as Juliet's
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