| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: Thrasymachus replies: 'Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the
festival of Bendis.' Yes; and a very good entertainment with which your
kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not
a good entertainment--but that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many
things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry,
and then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly; and then
the comparative advantages of just and unjust: and the sum of all is that
I know not what justice is; how then shall I know whether the just is happy
or not?...
Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to
the analogy of the arts. 'Justice is like the arts (1) in having no
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: still.
"Hush!" he said.
But it was like our watching the dawn; nothing more followed.
"They have shot that bear," I remarked.
He did not answer, and we put the saddles on without talk. We
made no haste, but we were not over half an hour, I suppose, in
getting off with the packs. It was not a new thing to hear a shot
where wild game was in plenty; yet as we rode that shot sounded
already in my mind different from others. Perhaps I should not
believe this to-day but for what I look back to. To make camp
last night we had turned off the trail, and now followed the
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: one was there. He forced his hand down to his gun, and the
touch of cold steel was another icy shock. Then he waited. But
all was silent--silent as only a wilderness arroyo can be, with
its low murmuring of wind in the mesquite. Had he heard a step?
He began to breathe again.
But what was the matter with the light of his camp-fire? It had
taken on a strange green luster and seemed to be waving off
into the outer shadows. Duane heard no step, saw no movement;
nevertheless, there was another present at that camp-fire
vigil. Duane saw him. He lay there in the middle of the green
brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His
The Lone Star Ranger |
