| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there
seems to mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and
numerical proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound
and number are to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not
dependent on the variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a
connecting link with the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is
describing what to him appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple
and characteristic melody on the impressible mind of the Greek is more than
we can easily appreciate. The effect of national airs may bear some
comparison with it. And, besides all this, there is a confusion between
the harmony of musical notes and the harmony of soul and body, which is so
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: and he answered gently, "I know then that there will be some poor
fellow who will have an easier time of it than I have had."
He nodded to Fellner, who had already grasped his hand and pressed
it hard. A tear ran down his grey beard, and long after Muller had
gone the old gentleman lay pondering over his last words.
Berner led the visitor to the door. As he was opening it, Muller
asked: "Has Egon Langen a bad scar on his right cheek?"
Berner's eyes looked his astonishment. How did the stranger know
this? And how did he come to mention this forgotten name.
"Yes, he has, but how did you know it?" he murmured in surprise.
He received no answer, for Muller was already walking quickly down
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: who were done with fair weather for life! Some of the
west-country Societarians standing by, who would have
'rejoiced more than in great sums' to be at their
hanging, hustled them so rudely that they knocked their
heads together. It was not magnanimous behaviour to
dethroned enemies; but one, at least, of the Societarians
had groaned in the BOOTS, and they had all seen their
dear friends upon the scaffold. Again, at the 'woeful
Union,' it was here that people crowded to escort their
favourite from the last of Scottish parliaments: people
flushed with nationality, as Boswell would have said,
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