| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: Then I want you to say a few words to the effect that the Government
is going to reconsider the question, and that you have reason to
believe that the Canal, if completed, will be of great international
value. You know the sort of things ministers say in cases of this
kind. A few ordinary platitudes will do. In modern life nothing
produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole
world kin. Will you do that for me?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Mrs. Cheveley, you cannot be serious in making
me such a proposition!
MRS. CHEVELEY. I am quite serious.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Coldly.] Pray allow me to believe that you
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: than by his own responsible choice busy himself with the loftiest
works of charity, because one is certain of following the will of
God in whatever one may do from obedience, but never certain in
the same degree of anything which we may do of our own proper
movement."[187]
[187] Alfonso Rodriguez, S. J.: Pratique de la Perfection
Chretienne, Part iii., Treatise v., ch. x.
One should read the letters in which Ignatius Loyola recommends
obedience as the backbone of his order, if one would gain insight
into the full spirit of its cult.[188] They are too long to
quote; but Ignatius's belief is so vividly expressed in a couple
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: time,[26] before the appetite is cloyed, the gastronomic pleasure
derived from the costlier bill of fare far exceeds that of the cheaper
dinner-table.
[26] Lit. "so long as the soul (i.e. the appetite) accepts with
pleasure the viands"; i.e. there's an interval, at any rate,
during which "such as my soul delights in" can still apply and for
so long.
But, as a matter of plain logic (Hiero retorted), should you not say,
the greater the pleasure a man feels in any business, the more
enthusiastic his devotion to it?
That is quite true (he answered).
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