| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: he thought Timaeus was following a wrong method and perverting
truth, passages which it will be worth while to examine in detail.
Timaeus, from the fact of there being a Roman custom to shoot a
war-horse on a stated day, argued back to the Trojan origin of that
people. Polybius, on the other hand, points out that the inference
is quite unwarrantable, because horse-sacrifices are ordinary
institutions common to all barbarous tribes. Timaeus here, as was
common with Greek writers, is arguing back from some custom of the
present to an historical event in the past. Polybius really is
employing the comparative method, showing how the custom was an
ordinary step in the civilisation of every early people.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: possession; and the mayor gave him a place in his office with a salary
of six hundred francs. Max kept it a few months, then gave it up of
his own accord, and was replaced by a captain named Carpentier, who,
like himself, had remained faithful to Napoleon.
By this time Gilet had become grand master of the Knights of Idleness,
and was leading a life which lost him the good-will of the chief
people of the town; who, however, did not openly make the fact known
to him, for he was violent and much feared by all, even by the
officers of the old army who, like himself, had refused to serve under
the Bourbons, and had come home to plant their cabbages in Berry. The
little affection felt for the Bourbons among the natives of Issoudun
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: months; but he never distinguished HER by any particular
attention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of
extravagant and wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way,
and others of the regiment, who treated her with more
distinction, again became her favourites."
It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be
added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting
subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them
from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's
thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all
anguish, self-reproach, she could find no interval of ease or
Pride and Prejudice |
