| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: foretell vexation from that quarter."
"Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's
genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart,
the young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But
Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think
her the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have.
She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing.
She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse,
because undesigned. Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can
Emma imagine she has any thing to learn herself, while Harriet
is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet,
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: of that which is advanced from time to time, just because I do not know;
and when I have enquired, I will say whether I agree with you or not.
Please then to allow me time to reflect.
Reflect, he said.
I am reflecting, I replied, and discover that temperance, or wisdom, if
implying a knowledge of anything, must be a science, and a science of
something.
Yes, he said; the science of itself.
Is not medicine, I said, the science of health?
True.
And suppose, I said, that I were asked by you what is the use or effect of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: and, thirdly, to explain one or two misconceptions. But he is not
the Square he once was. Years of imprisonment, and the still heavier
burden of general incredulity and mockery, have combined with
the natural decay of old age to erase from his mind many of
the thoughts and notions, and much also of the terminology,
which he acquired during his short stay in Spaceland. He has,
therefore, requested me to reply in his behalf to two special
objections, one of an intellectual, the other of a moral nature.
The first objection is, that a Flatlander, seeing a Line,
sees something that must be THICK to the eye as well as LONG
to the eye (otherwise it would not be visible, if it had not
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
