| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [24] See Xen. "Symp." viii. 35; Plut. "Lycurg." 18.
That this, however, which is the fact, should be scarcely credited in
some quarters does not surprise me, seeing that in many states the
laws[25] do not oppose the desires in question.
[25] I.e. "law and custom."
I have now described the two chief methods of education in vogue; that
is to say, the Lacedaemonian as contrasted with that of the rest of
Hellas, and I leave it to the judgment of him whom it may concern,
which of the two has prodcued the finer type of men. And by finer I
mean the better disciplined, the more modest and reverential, and, in
matters where self-restraint is a virtue, the more continent.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: What I meant to say, simply, is that the quarter-deck training
does not prepare one sufficiently for the reception of literary
criticism. Only that, and no more. But this defect is not
without gravity. If it be permissible to twist, invert, adapt
(and spoil) M. Anatole France's definition of a good critic, then
let us say that the good author is he who contemplates without
marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst
criticisms. Far be from me the intention to mislead an attentive
public into the belief that there is no criticism at sea. That
would be dishonest, and even impolite. Everything can be found
at sea, according to the spirit of your quest--strife, peace,
Some Reminiscences |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: Nor is there any real vulgarity in the fear which Socrates expresses that
he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia: this is the natural
exaggeration of what might be expected from an imperious woman. Socrates
is not to be taken seriously in all that he says, and Plato, both in the
Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow to admit a sort of Aristophanic
humour. How a great original genius like Plato might or might not have
written, what was his conception of humour, or what limits he would have
prescribed to himself, if any, in drawing the picture of the Silenus
Socrates, are problems which no critical instinct can determine.
On the other hand, the dialogue has several Platonic traits, whether
original or imitated may be uncertain. Socrates, when he departs from his
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