| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: disguised until they appear different to the ignorant person, and he may
not recognize them, although they are the same, just as any one of us would
not recognize the same drugs under different disguises of colour and smell,
although to the physician, who regards the power of them, they are the
same, and he is not put out by the addition; and in like manner the
etymologist is not put out by the addition or transposition or subtraction
of a letter or two, or indeed by the change of all the letters, for this
need not interfere with the meaning. As was just now said, the names of
Hector and Astyanax have only one letter alike, which is tau, and yet they
have the same meaning. And how little in common with the letters of their
names has Archepolis (ruler of the city)--and yet the meaning is the same.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Up in the city, I tried for a while to list the quotations on an
interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in my swivel-chair.
Just before noon the phone woke me, and I started up with sweat
breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker; she often called
me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements
between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find
in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something
fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come
sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.
"I've left Daisy's house," she said. "I'm at Hempstead, and I'm going down
to Southampton this afternoon."
The Great Gatsby |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: farcical comedies.
'Nor will he be welcomed by society alone. Art, breaking from the
prison-house of realism, will run to greet him, and will kiss his
false, beautiful lips, knowing that he alone is in possession of
the great secret of all her manifestations, the secret that Truth
is entirely and absolutely a matter of style; while Life - poor,
probable, uninteresting human life - tired of repeating herself for
the benefit of Mr. Herbert Spencer, scientific historians, and the
compilers of statistics in general, will follow meekly after him,
and try to reproduce, in her own simple and untutored way, some of
the marvels of which he talks.
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