| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: was sound and that he had wasted time enough. This quickened on my
part another hope, a hope suggested by some roundabout rumour--I
forget how it reached me--that he was engaged to a girl down in
Hampshire. He turned out not to be, but I felt sure that if only
he went into figures deep enough he would become, among the girls
down in Hampshire or elsewhere, one of those numerous prizes of
battle whose defences are practically not on the scale of their
provocations. I nursed in short the thought that it was probably
open to him to develop as one of the types about whom, as the years
go on, superficial critics wonder without relief how they ever
succeeded in dragging a bride to the altar. He never alluded to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: Hesych. ap. Schneider, n. ad loc.
[6] These are the {diabateria}, so often mentioned in the "Hellenica."
Invariably when he offers sacrifice the king begins the work in the
gloaming ere the day has broken, being minded to anticipate the
goodwill of the god. And round about the place of sacrifice are
present the polemarchs and captains, the lieutenants and sub-
lieutenants, with the commandants of the baggage train, and any
general of the states[7] who may care to assist. There, too, are to be
seen two of the ephors, who neither meddle nor make, save only at the
summons of the king, yet have they their eyes fixed on the proceedings
of each one there and keep all in order,[8] as may well be guessed.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: perishable form to which destruction must come? If it is, is not God
inconsistent and impotent? inconsistent, because He ought to have seen
the result before the attempt,--moreover why should He delay to
destroy that which He is to destroy?--impotent, for how else could He
have created an imperfect man?
"If an imperfect creation contradicts the faculties which man
attributes to God we are forced back upon the question, Is creation
perfect? The idea is in harmony with that of a God supremely
intelligent who could make no mistakes; but then, what means the
degradation of His work, and its regeneration? Moreover, a perfect
world is, necessarily, indestructible; its forms would not perish, it
Seraphita |
