| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: asking questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer.
"Assuredly not."
"Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say," assented Mrs.
Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another.
"It was meant to--to elevate."
Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the
black cap of condemnation. "I hardly see," she interposed, "how
a book steeped in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate,
however much it may instruct."
"I meant, of course, to instruct," said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by
the unexpected distinction between two terms which she had
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: think of nothing to say.
"No, sir," Old Miss went on, "our folks get flattened out but they
rise up again, and that's more than I can say for plenty of people
not so far away from here. Look at Cathleen Calvert. You can see
what she's come to. Poor white! And a heap lower than the man she
married. Look at the McRae family. Flat to the ground, helpless,
don't know what to do, don't know how to do anything. Won't even
try. They spend their time whining about the good old days. And
look at--well, look at nearly anybody in this County except my Alex
and my Sally and you and Jim Tarleton and his girls and some
others. The rest have gone under because they didn't have any sap
Gone With the Wind |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: (Some words appear to have dropped out here.) You would distinguish the
wise from the foolish?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: The many are foolish, the few wise?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And you use both the terms, 'wise' and 'foolish,' in reference
to something?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: Would you call a person wise who can give advice, but does not
know whether or when it is better to carry out the advice?
ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.
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