| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: truly, speaks always with a purpose.
SOCRATES: Then Odysseus would appear after all to be better than Achilles?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why, were not the voluntary liars only just now shown to be
better than the involuntary?
HIPPIAS: And how, Socrates, can those who intentionally err, and
voluntarily and designedly commit iniquities, be better than those who err
and do wrong involuntarily? Surely there is a great excuse to be made for
a man telling a falsehood, or doing an injury or any sort of harm to
another in ignorance. And the laws are obviously far more severe on those
who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: a moment under their spell. Francine sprang from the carriage, and
said, in the nervous tone of an excited woman: "Pierre, what news did
you give to that lady and her son on the road? What is going on here?
Why are you hiding? I must know all."
These words brought a look on the Chouan's face which Francine had
never seen there before. The Breton led his innocent mistress to the
door; there he turned her towards the blanching light of the moon, and
answered, as he looked in her face with terrifying eyes: "Yes, by my
damnation, Francine, I will tell you, but not until you have sworn on
these beads (and he pulled an old chaplet from beneath his goatskin)--
on this relic, which /you know well/," he continued, "to answer me
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: BENTLEY. I'm not. I never heard such conversation: I cant believe
my ears. And mind you, this is the man who objected to my marrying
his daughter on the ground that a marriage between a member of the
great and good middle class with one of the vicious and corrupt
aristocracy would be a misalliance. A misalliance, if you please!
This is the man Ive adopted as a father!
TARLETON. Eh! Whats that? Adopted me as a father, have you?
BENTLEY. Yes. Thats an idea of mine. I knew a chap named Joey
Percival at Oxford (you know I was two months at Balliol before I was
sent down for telling the old woman who was head of that silly college
what I jolly well thought of him. He would have been glad to have me
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