| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: hemlock, and the father thought that wine would save him, he would value
the wine?
He would.
And also the vessel which contains the wine?
Certainly.
But does he therefore value the three measures of wine, or the earthen
vessel which contains them, equally with his son? Is not this rather the
true state of the case? All his anxiety has regard not to the means which
are provided for the sake of an object, but to the object for the sake of
which they are provided. And although we may often say that gold and
silver are highly valued by us, that is not the truth; for there is a
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was
motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill,
like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a
leaf came drifting--from nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill put up her hand
and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again.
She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder,
given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes.
"What has been happening to me?" said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet
it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown!...But the
nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm. It must
have had a knock, somehow. Never mind--a little dab of black sealing-wax
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: Appendix A
For information concerning all the countries of the West
which have not been visited by Europeans, consult the account of
two expeditions undertaken at the expense of Congress by Major
Long. This traveller particularly mentions, on the subject of
the great American desert, that a line may be drawn nearly
parallel to the 20th degree of longitude *a (meridian of
Washington), beginning from the Red River and ending at the River
Platte. From this imaginary line to the Rocky Mountains, which
bound the valley of the Mississippi on the west, lie immense
plains, which are almost entirely covered with sand, incapable of
|
