| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: (Theat.), 'whither the argument blows we follow' (Rep.). To have
determined beforehand, as in a modern didactic treatise, the nature and
limits of the subject, would have been fatal to the spirit of enquiry or
discovery, which is the soul of the dialogue...These remarks are applicable
to nearly all the works of Plato, but to the Cratylus and Phaedrus more
than any others. See Phaedrus, Introduction.
There is another aspect under which some of the dialogues of Plato may be
more truly viewed:--they are dramatic sketches of an argument. We have
found that in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Protagoras, Meno, we arrived at
no conclusion--the different sides of the argument were personified in the
different speakers; but the victory was not distinctly attributed to any of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: 'No, no, Arthur, you mustn't do that; but if she's not engaged,
just ask her to come here a minute. Tell her I want to speak to
her.'
He ran to perform my bidding, and quickly returned with his mother.
How lovely she looked with her dark ringlets streaming in the light
summer breeze, her fair cheek slightly flushed, and her countenance
radiant with smiles. Dear Arthur! what did I not owe to you for
this and every other happy meeting? Through him I was at once
delivered from all formality, and terror, and constraint. In love
affairs, there is no mediator like a merry, simple-hearted child -
ever ready to cement divided hearts, to span the unfriendly gulf of
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: When he was ten years old he had seen some of his
own family, and most of his neighbors, starve to death.
He could remember looking at the stiffened figure of a woman
stretched on the stones by the roadside, with the green
stain of nettles on her white lips. A girl five years or
so older than himself, also a Madden and distantly related,
had started in despair off across the mountains to the town
where it was said the poor-law officers were dealing
out food. He could recall her coming back next day,
wild-eyed with hunger and the fever; the officers had
refused her relief because her bare legs were not wholly
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
