| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: handing it over the railing. Why, I tell you a barkeeper's a
high-priced man mostly, and his job's a snap to this. I'd like
to know how a barkeeper would make out if his customers came
back only once a year and he had to remember whether they wanted
their drinks cold or hot or `chill off'. And another thing: if a
chap comes in with a tale of woe, does the barkeeper have to ask
him what he's doing for it, and listen while he tells how much
weight he lost in a blanket sweat? No, sir; he pushes him a
bottle and lets it go at that."
Father passed away the following winter. He'd been a little bit
delirious, and his last words were: "Yes, sir; hot, with a pinch
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: of view; for very likely you may be right:--You affirm virtue to be the
power of attaining goods?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the goods which you mean are such as health and wealth and
the possession of gold and silver, and having office and honour in the
state--those are what you would call goods?
MENO: Yes, I should include all those.
SOCRATES: Then, according to Meno, who is the hereditary friend of the
great king, virtue is the power of getting silver and gold; and would you
add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to be of
no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: way; and the very cemetery was brand new. Death, however,
had been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must
pick my way in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of
millionnaires, and past the plain black crosses of Hungarian
labourers, till chance or instinct led me to the place that was my
father's. The stone had been erected (I knew already) "by
admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in monuments;
their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the
inscription. But the name was in larger letters and stared at
me--JAMES K. DODD. What a singular thing is a name, I
|
