| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: storys of the palaces, was no longer heard; and the camels, lying
ostrich fashion on their stomachs, rested peacefully in the middle of
the terraces. The porters were asleep in the streets on the thresholds
of the houses; the shadows of the colossuses stretched across the
deserted squares; occasionally in the distance the smoke of a still
burning sacrifice would escape through the bronze tiling, and the
heavy breeze would waft the odours of aromatics blended with the scent
of the sea and the exhalation from the sun-heated walls. The
motionless waves shone around Carthage, for the moon was spreading her
light at once upon the mountain-circled gulf and upon the lake of
Tunis, where flamingoes formed long rose-coloured lines amid the banks
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: his troops back to the sea, intending to sail to Ephesus. Meanwhile
Tissaphernes, who had wind of this intention, began collecting a large
army and despatching cavalry with a summons to the inhabitants one and
all to rally to the defence of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus.
[1] The MSS. here give a suspected passage, which may be rendered
thus: "The first of Olympiad 93, celebrated as the year in which
the newly-added two-horse race was won by Evagorias the Eleian,
and the stadion (200 yards foot-race) by the Cyrenaean Eubotas,
when Evarchippus was ephor at Sparta and Euctemon archon at
Athens." But Ol. 93, to which these officers,and the addition of
the new race at Olympia belong, is the year 408. We must therefore
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: father of similar beauties, that he will never be able to speak about
anything as he ought to speak unless he have a knowledge of philosophy.
And let Phaedrus answer you.
PHAEDRUS: Put the question.
SOCRATES: Is not rhetoric, taken generally, a universal art of enchanting
the mind by arguments; which is practised not only in courts and public
assemblies, but in private houses also, having to do with all matters,
great as well as small, good and bad alike, and is in all equally right,
and equally to be esteemed--that is what you have heard?
PHAEDRUS: Nay, not exactly that; I should say rather that I have heard the
art confined to speaking and writing in lawsuits, and to speaking in public
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