| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: And she says it unconcernedly because she is used to it. For some
reason, summer and winter alike, he wears a fur coat, and only in
very hot weather he does not go out but sits at home. As a rule
putting on his fur coat, wrapping it round him and turning up his
collar, he walks about the village, along the road to the
station, or sits from morning till night on the seat near the
church gates. He sits there without stirring. Passers-by bow to
him, but he does not respond, for as of old he dislikes the
peasants. If he is asked a question he answers quite rationally
and politely, but briefly.
There is a rumour going about in the village that his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: as your special glory, and I dare say that I have forgotten many other
things; but, as I was saying, only look to your own arts--and there are
plenty of them--and to those of others; and tell me, having regard to the
admissions which you and I have made, whether you discover any department
of art or any description of wisdom or cunning, whichever name you use, in
which the true and false are different and not the same: tell me, if you
can, of any. But you cannot.
HIPPIAS: Not without consideration, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Nor will consideration help you, Hippias, as I believe; but then
if I am right, remember what the consequence will be.
HIPPIAS: I do not know what you mean, Socrates.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: that what he is speaking is not his own composition. Thus in the Cratylus
he is run away with; in the Phaedrus he has heard somebody say something--
is inspired by the genius loci; in the Symposium he derives his wisdom from
Diotima of Mantinea, and the like. But he does not impose on Menexenus by
his dissimulation. Without violating the character of Socrates, Plato, who
knows so well how to give a hint, or some one writing in his name,
intimates clearly enough that the speech in the Menexenus like that in the
Phaedrus is to be attributed to Socrates. The address of the dead to the
living at the end of the oration may also be compared to the numerous
addresses of the same kind which occur in Plato, in whom the dramatic
element is always tending to prevail over the rhetorical. The remark has
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