| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: reserve in teaching, a disciplina arcani, of an esoteric and exoteric,
an inner and outer school, among these men, you must not be frightened
at the words, as if they spoke of priestcraft, or an intellectual
aristocracy, who kept the kernel of the nut for themselves, and gave the
husks to the mob. It was not so with the Christian schools; it was so
with the Heathen ones. The Heathens were content that the mob, the
herd, should have the husks. Their avowed intention and wish was to
leave the herd, as they called them, in the mere outward observance of
the old idolatries, while they themselves, the cultivated philosophers,
had the monopoly of those deeper spiritual truths which were contained
under the old superstitions, and were too sacred to be profaned by the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: But Heaven decreed I should not pipe in vain,
For, lo! not far from there, in secret dale,
All silent, sat an ancient nightingale.
My sparrow notes he heard; thereat awoke;
And with a tide of song his silence broke.
XX - TO -
I KNEW thee strong and quiet like the hills;
I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure,
In peace or war a Roman full equipt;
And just I knew thee, like the fabled kings
Who by the loud sea-shore gave judgment forth,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: pleased to transact business slowly, the other was never so happy as
when he could satisfy the demands of a petitioner without waste of
time.[4]
[1] Or, "how he presented his own manner in antithesis to the false
pretences of the Persian." For {alazoneia} see "Mem." I. vii. 1;
Aristot. "N. E." iv. 7; Theophr. "Char." vi.
[2] Lit. "a life striving towards beauteousness."
[3] Or, "added but greater lustre."
[4] Lit. "could satisfy and dismiss his petitioners without delay."
Again, it is worthy of observation how much easier and simpler to
satisfy was the standard of comfort which the Spartan aimed at.[5] For
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