| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: heavens, no explanation is given of the variation in the length of days and
nights at different times of the year. The relations of the earth and
heavens are so indistinct in the Timaeus and so figurative in the Phaedo,
Phaedrus and Republic, that we must give up the hope of ascertaining how
they were imagined by Plato, if he had any fixed or scientific conception
of them at all.
Section 5.
The soul of the world is framed on the analogy of the soul of man, and many
traces of anthropomorphism blend with Plato's highest flights of idealism.
The heavenly bodies are endowed with thought; the principles of the same
and other exist in the universe as well as in the human mind. The soul of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: know what else could have caused such craters."
Then he went back to his work, for nothing that had to do with
antiquity interested Bickley very much. The present and its
problems were enough for him, he would say, who neither had lived
in the past nor expected to have any share in the future.
As I remained curious I made an opportunity to scramble to the
bottom of one of these craters, taking with me some of the
natives with their wooden tools. Here I found a good deal of soil
either washed down from the surface or resulting from the
decomposition of the rock, though oddly enough in it nothing
grew. I directed them to dig. After a while to my astonishment
When the World Shook |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: MRS. HARDCASTLE. Oh, death!
TONY. No; it's only a cow. Don't be afraid, mamma; don't he afraid.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. As I'm alive, Tony, I see a man coming towards us.
Ah! I'm sure on't. If he perceives us, we are undone.
TONY. (Aside.) Father-in-law, by all that's unlucky, come to take one
of his night walks. (To her.) Ah, it's a highwayman with pistols as
long as my arm. A damned ill-looking fellow.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Good Heaven defend us! He approaches.
TONY. Do you hide yourself in that thicket, and leave me to manage
him. If there be any danger, I'll cough, and cry hem. When I cough,
be sure to keep close. (MRS. HARDCASTLE hides behind a tree in the
She Stoops to Conquer |
