| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: particularly as uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which,
at all interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess,
he threw off intonations as if he were tossing roses.
There was something in them that always made one "catch," and
I caught, at any rate, now so effectually that I stopped as short
as if one of the trees of the park had fallen across the road.
There was something new, on the spot, between us, and he was
perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, to enable me to do so,
he had no need to look a whit less candid and charming than usual.
I could feel in him how he already, from my at first finding
nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: he had learnt of Aspasia, is not coarse, as Schleiermacher supposes, but is
rather to be regarded as fanciful. Nor can we say that the offer of
Socrates to dance naked out of love for Menexenus, is any more un-Platonic
than the threat of physical force which Phaedrus uses towards Socrates.
Nor is there any real vulgarity in the fear which Socrates expresses that
he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia: this is the natural
exaggeration of what might be expected from an imperious woman. Socrates
is not to be taken seriously in all that he says, and Plato, both in the
Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow to admit a sort of Aristophanic
humour. How a great original genius like Plato might or might not have
written, what was his conception of humour, or what limits he would have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: BLESS, PRESERVE, AND KEEP YOU; THE LORD MERCIFULLY
WITH HIS FAVOR LOOK UPON YOU, AND FILL YOU WITH ALL
SPIRITUAL BENEDICTION AND GRACE; THAT YE MAY SO LIVE
TOGETHER IN THIS LIFE, THAT IN THE WORLD TO COME
YE MAY HAVE LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN."
In a sudden rush of desperate pity for herself and
the man to whom she was bound, she dropped on her
knees by his side, slipped her arms about his neck and
clung to him, sobbing.
"Oh, Jim, Jim, man," she whispered hoarsely. "I
can't see you sink into hell like this! Have you no
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