| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: inherited them, and they have become a part of us. The sophistry of an
ancient Greek sophist is nothing compared with the sophistry of a religious
order, or of a church in which during many ages falsehood has been
accumulating, and everything has been said on one side, and nothing on the
other. The conventions and customs which we observe in conversation, and
the opposition of our interests when we have dealings with one another
('the buyer saith, it is nought--it is nought,' etc.), are always obscuring
our sense of truth and right. The sophistry of human nature is far more
subtle than the deceit of any one man. Few persons speak freely from their
own natures, and scarcely any one dares to think for himself: most of us
imperceptibly fall into the opinions of those around us, which we partly
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: England besides, but in none in so gross a degree as in this part.
This way of boorish country speech, as in Ireland it is called the
"brogue" upon the tongue, so here it is called "jouring;" and it is
certain that though the tongue be all mere natural English, yet
those that are but a little acquainted with them cannot understand
one-half of what they say. It is not possible to explain this
fully by writing, because the difference is not so much in the
orthography of words as in the tone and diction--their abridging
the speech, "cham" for "I am," "chil" for "I will," "don" for "put
on," and "doff" for "put off," and the like. And I cannot omit a
short story here on this subject. Coming to a relation's house,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: thing to make it out of, I am convinced, is the old Academic mind.
One might as soon try to fake the old VICTORY at Portsmouth into a
line of battleship again. Besides which the old Academic mind, like
those old bathless, damp Gothic colleges, is much too delightful in
its peculiar and distinctive way to damage by futile patching.
My heart warms to a sense of affectionate absurdity as I recall dear
old Codger, surely the most "unleaderly" of men. No more than from
the old Schoolmen, his kindred, could one get from him a School for
Princes. Yet apart from his teaching he was as curious and adorable
as a good Netsuke. Until quite recently he was a power in
Cambridge, he could make and bar and destroy, and in a way he has
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