| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: unabated, and I heard snatches of political wisdom rising and
falling.
The house of Faamuina stands on a knoll in the MALAE.
Thither we mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, and we
went in. Faamuina was there himself, his wife Pelepa, three
other chiefs, and some attendants; and here again was this
exulting spectacle as of people on their marriage day.
Faamuina (when I last saw him) was an elderly, limping
gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright-
eyed boy that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all
had cartridge-belts. We stayed but a little while to smoke a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: You don't respect me."
"But why?"
"Make a blooming buffoon of myself," he mumbled tragically.
In great distress Travis labored to contradict him. Why, they had
just been having a good time, that was all. Why, she had been
just as silly as he. Condy caught at the word.
"Silly! There. I knew it. I told you. I'm silly. I'm a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: of the Republic (compare also Alcibiades 1).
There is no criterion of the date of the Symposium, except that which is
furnished by the allusion to the division of Arcadia after the destruction
of Mantinea. This took place in the year B.C. 384, which is the forty-
fourth year of Plato's life. The Symposium cannot therefore be regarded as
a youthful work. As Mantinea was restored in the year 369, the composition
of the Dialogue will probably fall between 384 and 369. Whether the
recollection of the event is more likely to have been renewed at the
destruction or restoration of the city, rather than at some intermediate
period, is a consideration not worth raising.
The Symposium is connected with the Phaedrus both in style and subject;
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