| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: (which covers the multitude of sins) with which they are
resplendent, neither they nor their country would be, by the carnal
judgment, counted worthy of so great labor in their behalf. For
they themselves are given much to lying, theft, and drunkenness,
vain babbling, and profane dancing and singing; and are still, as
S. Gildas reports of them, 'more careful to shroud their villainous
faces in bushy hair, than decently to cover their bodies; while
their land (by reason of the tyranny of their chieftains, and the
continual wars and plunderings among their tribes, which leave them
weak and divided, an easy prey to the myrmidons of the
excommunicate and usurping Englishwoman) lies utterly waste with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: family to be the mother of them, and then about heaping up money for them--
and yet taking no care about their education. But then again, when I
contemplate any of those who pretend to educate others, I am amazed. To
me, if I am to confess the truth, they all seem to be such outrageous
beings: so that I do not know how I can advise the youth to study
philosophy.
SOCRATES: Dear Crito, do you not know that in every profession the
inferior sort are numerous and good for nothing, and the good are few and
beyond all price: for example, are not gymnastic and rhetoric and money-
making and the art of the general, noble arts?
CRITO: Certainly they are, in my judgment.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: error of both the speeches. There was also a simplicity about them which
was refreshing; having no truth or honesty in them, nevertheless they
pretended to be something, hoping to succeed in deceiving the manikins of
earth and gain celebrity among them. Wherefore I must have a purgation.
And I bethink me of an ancient purgation of mythological error which was
devised, not by Homer, for he never had the wit to discover why he was
blind, but by Stesichorus, who was a philosopher and knew the reason why;
and therefore, when he lost his eyes, for that was the penalty which was
inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely Helen, he at once purged
himself. And the purgation was a recantation, which began thus,--
'False is that word of mine--the truth is that thou didst not embark in
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