| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: very moment when the people from the city are watching the ship
on her way, to turn it into a rock near the land and looking
like a ship. This will astonish everybody, and you can then bury
their city under the mountain."
When earth-encircling Neptune heard this he went to Scheria
where the Phaeacians live, and stayed there till the ship, which
was making rapid way, had got close in. Then he went up to it,
turned it into stone, and drove it down with the flat of his
hand so as to root it in the ground. After this he went away.
The Phaeacians then began talking among themselves, and one
would turn towards his neighbour, saying, "Bless my heart, who
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: this is thy "DIVINITY WHICH STIRS WITHIN ME;" - not that, in some
sad and sickening moments, "MY SOUL SHRINKS BACK UPON HERSELF, AND
STARTLES AT DESTRUCTION;" - mere pomp of words! - but that I feel
some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself; - all comes
from thee, great - great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if
a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest
desert of thy creation. - Touch'd with thee, Eugenius draws my
curtain when I languish - hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the
weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou giv'st a portion of
it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest
mountains; - he finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock. - This
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: them all? Something must be allowed to chance, and to the nature of the
subjects treated of in them.) On the other hand, Mr. Grote trusts mainly
to the Alexandrian Canon. But I hardly think that we are justified in
attributing much weight to the authority of the Alexandrian librarians in
an age when there was no regular publication of books, and every temptation
to forge them; and in which the writings of a school were naturally
attributed to the founder of the school. And even without intentional
fraud, there was an inclination to believe rather than to enquire. Would
Mr. Grote accept as genuine all the writings which he finds in the lists of
learned ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to Xenophon, to Aristotle? The
Alexandrian Canon of the Platonic writings is deprived of credit by the
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