| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: Greek philosophy known to us which combined these two characteristics.
Antisthenes, who was an enemy of pleasure, was not a physical philosopher;
the atomists, who were physical philosophers, were not enemies of pleasure.
Yet such a combination of opinions is far from being impossible. Plato's
omission to mention them by name has created the same uncertainty
respecting them which also occurs respecting the 'friends of the ideas' and
the 'materialists' in the Sophist.
On the whole, this discussion is one of the least satisfactory in the
dialogues of Plato. While the ethical nature of pleasure is scarcely
considered, and the merely physical phenomenon imperfectly analysed, too
much weight is given to ideas of measure and number, as the sole principle
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.
There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who
tyrannises over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over
the soul. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and
body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called
the Pope. The third is called the People. The Prince may be
cultivated. Many Princes have been. Yet in the Prince there is
danger. One thinks of Dante at the bitter feast in Verona, of
Tasso in Ferrara's madman's cell. It is better for the artist not
to live with Princes. The Pope may be cultivated. Many Popes have
been; the bad Popes have been. The bad Popes loved Beauty, almost
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: and, as she glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen
a face so seductively lovely nor of so unusual a type.
With the skin of a perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes
as black as a Creole's, which, together with her full red lips,
told me that this beautiful stranger, whose touch had so startled me,
was not a child of our northern shores.
"Forgive me," she said, speaking with an odd, pretty accent,
and laying a slim hand, with jeweled fingers, confidingly upon
my arm, "if I startled you. But--is it true that Sir Crichton
Davey has been--murdered?"
I looked into her big, questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion laboring
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
