| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: customary so to do."
"Well then," rejoined Socrates, "does it not strike even you, Meletus,
as wonderful when in all ordinary concerns the best people should
obtain, I do not say only an equal share, but an exclusive preference;
but in my case, simply because I am selected by certain people as an
adept in respect of the greatest treasure men possess--education, I am
on that account to be prosecuted by you, sir, on the capital charge?"
Much more than this, it stands to reason, was urged, whether by
himself or by the friends who advocated his cause.[40] But my object
has not been to mention everything that arose out of the suit. It
suffices me to have shown on the one hand that Socrates, beyond
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: landsman with shattered nerves, every one of God's creatures
makes it fast. A strange instance of man's unconcern and
brazen boldness in the face of death!
We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases, which we
import into daily talk with noble inappropriateness. We have
no idea of what death is, apart from its circumstances and
some of its consequences to others; and although we have some
experience of living, there is not a man on earth who has
flown so high into abstraction as to have any practical guess
at the meaning of the word LIFE. All literature, from Job and
Omar Khayam to Thomas Carlyle or Walt Whitman, is but an
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: see Germany wide-spread before you, like a map, dotted with old
cities, walled and spired, that dream all day on their own
reflections in the Rhine or Danube. You may pass the spinal cord of
Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy extends her
marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the midland sea. You
may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be awakened
at dawn by the scream of the express or the small pipe of the robin
in the hedge. For you the rain should allay the dust of the beaten
road; the wind dry your clothes upon you as you walked. Autumn
should hang out russet pears and purple grapes along the lane; inn
after inn proffer you their cups of raw wine; river by river receive
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