| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: punctual in the performance of the least religious duties; and he must have
believed in his own oracular sign, of which he seemed to have an internal
witness. But the existence of Apollo or Zeus, or the other gods whom the
State approves, would have appeared to him both uncertain and unimportant
in comparison of the duty of self-examination, and of those principles of
truth and right which he deemed to be the foundation of religion. (Compare
Phaedr.; Euthyph.; Republic.)
The second question, whether Plato meant to represent Socrates as braving
or irritating his judges, must also be answered in the negative. His
irony, his superiority, his audacity, 'regarding not the person of man,'
necessarily flow out of the loftiness of his situation. He is not acting a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
'Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen--
Yet save that labour, for I have them here.
What should I say?--One of my husband's men
Bid thou be ready, by and by, to bear
A letter to my lord, my love, my dear;
Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;
The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.'
Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,
First hovering o'er the paper with her quill:
Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: At night upon my pillow lie;
Still round the earth his way he takes,
And morning after morning makes.
While here at home, in shining day,
We round the sunny garden play,
Each little Indian sleepy-head
Is being kissed and put to bed.
And when at eve I rise form tea,
Day dawns beyond the Atlantic Sea;
And all the children in the west
Are getting up and being dressed.
A Child's Garden of Verses |
