| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Koran: they listen to thee; and when they whisper apart- when the wrong-doers
say, 'Ye only follow a man enchanted.'
Behold, how they strike out for you parables, and err, and cannot
find the way!
They say, 'What! when we have become bones and rubbish are we to
be raised up a new creature?' Say, 'Be ye stones, or iron, or a
creature, the greatest your breasts can conceive-!' Then they shall
say, 'Who is to restore us?' Say, 'He who originated you at first;'
and they will wag their heads and say, 'When will that be? Say, 'It
may, perhaps, be nigh.'
The day when He shall call on you and ye shall answer with praise to
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: him, so, serving him, you will at last come to feel possession in him, and
you will forgive.' And he said, 'I will do it.' Afterwards, as I passed
by in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, 'I have done all. It
helps nothing! My speaking well of him helps me nothing! If I share my
heart's blood with him, is the burning within me less? I cannot forgive; I
cannot forgive! Oh, God, I cannot forgive!'
"I said to him, 'See here, look back on all your past. See from your
childhood all smallness, all indirectness that has been yours; look well at
it, and in its light do you not see every man your brother? Are you so
sinless you have right to hate?'
"He looked, and said, 'Yes, you are right; I too have failed, and I forgive
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: "Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed."
The errors of private persons he bore with gently, but those of rulers
he looked upon as grave; since the mischief wrought in the one case
was so small, and so large in the other. The proper attribute of
royalty was, he maintained, not an avoidance of responsibility, but a
constant striving after nobleness.[3]
[3] On the word {kalokagathia} so translated, see Demosth. 777, 5.
|
