| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.
Poem: Her Voice
The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: not, as in the later Dialogues of Plato, of embittered hatred; and the
places and persons have a considerable family likeness; (2) the Euthydemus
belongs to the Socratic period in which Socrates is represented as willing
to learn, but unable to teach; and in the spirit of Xenophon's Memorabilia,
philosophy is defined as 'the knowledge which will make us happy;' (3) we
seem to have passed the stage arrived at in the Protagoras, for Socrates is
no longer discussing whether virtue can be taught--from this question he is
relieved by the ingenuous declaration of the youth Cleinias; and (4) not
yet to have reached the point at which he asserts 'that there are no
teachers.' Such grounds are precarious, as arguments from style and plan
are apt to be (Greek). But no arguments equally strong can be urged in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms,
and hear once more the words of love which had been denied me for
so many years.
During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single
chance to so much as steal a glance at her where she stood behind
me beside the throne of the dead ruler. I wondered why she no
longer urged me on with the strains of the martial hymn of Helium;
but I did not need more than the knowledge that I was battling for
her to bring out the best that is in me.
The Warlord of Mars |
