| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: creature of the name of Fector, a spare, short, jumpy fellow with a
red face and muddy eyes. He described himself as a journalist as
certain kind of women give themselves out as actresses in the dock
of a police-court.
"He used to introduce himself to strangers as a man with a mission
to track out abuses and fight them whenever found. He would also
hint that he was a martyr. And it's a fact that he had been
kicked, horsewhipped, imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy out of
pretty well every place between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a
professional blackmailer.
"I suppose, in that trade, you've got to have active wits and sharp
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: and of the subjective element in knowledge--a 'rich banquet' of
metaphysical questions in which we 'taste of many things.' (7) And still
the mind of Plato, having snatched for a moment at these shadows of the
future, quickly rejects them: thus early has he reached the conclusion
that there can be no science which is a 'science of nothing' (Parmen.).
(8) The conception of a science of good and evil also first occurs here, an
anticipation of the Philebus and Republic as well as of moral philosophy in
later ages.
The dramatic interest of the Dialogue chiefly centres in the youth
Charmides, with whom Socrates talks in the kindly spirit of an elder. His
childlike simplicity and ingenuousness are contrasted with the dialectical
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: Breitenbach.
Isch. And when you have cleansed the corn over half the floor, will
you proceed at once, with the corn thus strewn in front of you, to
winnow the remainder,[14] or will you first pack the clean grain into
the narrowest space against the central pillar?[15]
[14] Lit. "of the chaff," where we should say "corn," the winnowing
process separating chaff from grain and grain from chaff.
[15] If that is the meaning of {ton polon}. Al. "the outer edge or rim
of the threshing-floor."
Soc. Yes, upon my word! first pack together the clean grain, and
proceed. My chaff will now be carried into the empty portion of the
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