| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure
and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a
good?
CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they
are the same.
SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no
longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say
what is contrary to your real opinion.
CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would
ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: two natures, perfect God and perfect man, and preserved
undefiled, even after birth, the virginity of her that bore him.
He, being made of like passions with ourselves in all things, yet
without sin, took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. For,
since by sin death entered into the world, need was that he, that
should redeem the world, should be without sin, and not by sin
subject unto death.
"When he had lived thirty years among men, he was baptized in the
river Jordan by John, an holy man, and great above all the
prophets. And when he was baptized there came a voice from
heaven, from God, even the Father, saying, `This is my beloved
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: a twinkling, the old woman had an apron full of broken rubbish.
"We shall get our winter's wood cheap," quoth Tabitha.
The good work being thus commenced, Peter beat down all before
him, smiting and hewing at the joists and timbers, unclinching
spike-nails, ripping and tearing away boards, with a tremendous
racket, from morning till night. He took care, however, to leave
the outside shell of the house untouched, so that the neighbors
might not suspect what was going on.
Never, in any of his vagaries, though each had made him happy
while it lasted, had Peter been happier than now. Perhaps, after
all, there was something in Peter Goldthwaite's turn of mind,
Twice Told Tales |
