| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: a laugh than seriously. He is the notary captain of the national
guard, who dislikes to be taken for a notary, solicits the cross of
the Legion of honor, keeps his cabriolet, and leaves the verification
of his deeds to his clerks; he is the notary who goes to balls and
theatres, buys pictures and plays at ecarte; he has coffers in which
gold is received on deposit and is later returned in bank-bills,--a
notary who follows his epoch, risks capital in doubtful investments,
speculates with all he can lay his hands on, and expects to retire
with an income of thirty thousand francs after ten years' practice; in
short, the notary whose cleverness comes of his duplicity, whom many
men fear as an accomplice possessing their secrets, and who sees in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: grasp the conception of gilding it with his bounty. He should
snatch it from no other rites and associate it with nothing
profane; he would simply take it as it should be given up to him
and make it a masterpiece of splendour and a mountain of fire.
Tended sacredly all the year, with the sanctifying church round it,
it would always be ready for his offices. There would be
difficulties, but from the first they presented themselves only as
difficulties surmounted. Even for a person so little affiliated
the thing would be a matter of arrangement. He saw it all in
advance, and how bright in especial the place would become to him
in the intermissions of toil and the dusk of afternoons; how rich
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: him (compare Protagoras). He does not wonder that he should be in a
difficulty, but he wonders at Hippias, and he becomes sensible of the
gravity of the situation, when ordinary men like himself can no longer go
to the wise and be taught by them.
It may be remarked as bearing on the genuineness of this dialogue: (1)
that the manners of the speakers are less subtle and refined than in the
other dialogues of Plato; (2) that the sophistry of Socrates is more
palpable and unblushing, and also more unmeaning; (3) that many turns of
thought and style are found in it which appear also in the other
dialogues:--whether resemblances of this kind tell in favour of or against
the genuineness of an ancient writing, is an important question which will
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