| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: powerful members of the state. I infer this for the following
reasons.[3] In other states the leaders in rank and influence do not
even desire to be thought to fear the magistrates. Such a thing they
would regard as in itself a symbol of servility. In Sparta, on the
contrary, the stronger a man is the more readily does he bow before
constituted authority. And indeed, they magnify themselves on their
humility, and on a prompt obedience, running, or at any rate not
crawling with laggard step, at the word of command. Such an example of
eager discipline, they are persuaded, set by themselves, will not fail
to be followed by the rest. And this is precisely what has taken
place. It[4] is reasonable to suppose that it was these same noblest
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close
alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their
neighbour's wall--one set of them declaring that they distinguish an
intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the
unit of measurement; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed
into the same--either party setting their ears before their understanding.
You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and
rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and
speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make
accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to
sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these
The Republic |
