| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: aliens and traders, or to the growth of the imports and exports,
coincident with the collecting together of larger masses of human
beings, or to an augmentation of harbour[50] and market dues: this
surplus, I say, however derived, you should take and invest[51] so as
to bring in the greatest revenue.[52]
[40] Or, "sinking fund."
[41] {athrooi}--"in a body." It is a military phrase, I think. In
close order, as it were, not in detachments.
[42] "According to our ability," a favourite Socratic phrase.
[43] {authis}. See for this corrupt passage Zurborg, "Comm." p. 31. He
would insert, "and a little delay will not be prejudicial to our
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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: SOCRATES: I should greatly like, Eudicus, to ask Hippias the meaning of
what he was saying just now about Homer. I have heard your father,
Apemantus, declare that the Iliad of Homer is a finer poem than the Odyssey
in the same degree that Achilles was a better man than Odysseus; Odysseus,
he would say, is the central figure of the one poem and Achilles of the
other. Now, I should like to know, if Hippias has no objection to tell me,
what he thinks about these two heroes, and which of them he maintains to be
the better; he has already told us in the course of his exhibition many
things of various kinds about Homer and divers other poets.
EUDICUS: I am sure that Hippias will be delighted to answer anything which
you would like to ask; tell me, Hippias, if Socrates asks you a question,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: than yourself, but it is not agreeable - I was going to say, it is
against the etiquette of the universe - to sit at the same table
and pick your own superior diet from among their crusts. I had not
seen such a thing done since the greedy boy at school with his
birthday cake. It was odious enough to witness, I could remember;
and I had never thought to play the part myself. But there again
you see what it is to be a pedlar.
There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much
more charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth. And I
fancy it must arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction
of the easy and the not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a
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