| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: parodying the ingenious follies of early logic; in the Cratylus he is
ridiculing the fancies of a new school of sophists and grammarians. The
fallacies of the Euthydemus are still retained at the end of our logic
books; and the etymologies of the Cratylus have also found their way into
later writers. Some of these are not much worse than the conjectures of
Hemsterhuis, and other critics of the last century; but this does not prove
that they are serious. For Plato is in advance of his age in his
conception of language, as much as he is in his conception of mythology.
(Compare Phaedrus.)
When the fervour of his etymological enthusiasm has abated, Socrates ends,
as he has begun, with a rational explanation of language. Still he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: my continuity but on the supposition that I had been cheap. I
rather resented the practice of fathering all flatness on my late
protector, who was in his unhonoured grave; but as I had my way to
make I found matter enough for complacency in being on a "staff."
At the same time I was aware of my exposure to suspicion as a
product of the old lowering system. This made me feel I was doubly
bound to have ideas, and had doubtless been at the bottom of my
proposing to Mr. Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on Neil
Paraday. I remember how he looked at me - quite, to begin with, as
if he had never heard of this celebrity, who indeed at that moment
was by no means in the centre of the heavens; and even when I had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: think better you go way, no come no more. Eh? What you think? I
have one man. I Indian girl. You 'Merican woman. You good to
see. You find plenty men. Your eyes blue like the sky. Your
skin so white, so soft."
Coolly she thrust out a brown forefinger and pressed the soft
cheek of the other woman. And to the eternal credit of Karen
Sayther, she never flinched. Pierre hesitated and half stepped
forward; but she motioned him away, though her heart welled to him
with secret gratitude. "It's all right, Pierre," she said.
"Please go away."
He stepped back respectfully out of earshot, where he stood
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