| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: his after-life; as Solon says, he will wish and desire to be learning so
long as he lives, and will not think that old age of itself brings wisdom.
To me, to be cross-examined by Socrates is neither unusual nor unpleasant;
indeed, I knew all along that where Socrates was, the argument would soon
pass from our sons to ourselves; and therefore, I say that for my part, I
am quite willing to discourse with Socrates in his own manner; but you had
better ask our friend Laches what his feeling may be.
LACHES: I have but one feeling, Nicias, or (shall I say?) two feelings,
about discussions. Some would think that I am a lover, and to others I may
seem to be a hater of discourse; for when I hear a man discoursing of
virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: in a New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St.
Gaudens) who is making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to
boot) one of the handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I
caught a cold on the Banks; fog is not for me; nearly died of
interviewers and visitors, during twenty-four hours in New York;
cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine, a journey like fairy-land
for the most engaging beauties, one little rocky and pine-shaded
cove after another, each with a house and a boat at anchor, so that
I left my heart in each and marvelled why American authors had been
so unjust to their country; caught another cold on the train;
arrived at Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: six thousand years of building, what have we done? Of the greater
part of all that skill and strength, NO vestige is left, but fallen
stones, that encumber the fields and impede the streams. But, from
this waste of disorder, and of time, and of rage, what IS left to
us? Constructive and progressive creatures, that we are, with
ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of fellowship, and
thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with the insects
of the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea? The
white surf rages in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of
scarcely nascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the
places where once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the
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