| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: reputation; but the truth is, that the outer form of him only is in the
city: his mind, disdaining the littlenesses and nothingnesses of human
things, is 'flying all abroad' as Pindar says, measuring earth and heaven
and the things which are under and on the earth and above the heaven,
interrogating the whole nature of each and all in their entirety, but not
condescending to anything which is within reach.
THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the jest which the
clever witty Thracian handmaid is said to have made about Thales, when he
fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was
so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: dropped down into the Secret Treasury of Venice.
"What a night that was! Four great casks full of gold stood there. In
the outer room silver pieces were piled in heaps, leaving a gangway
between by which to cross the chamber. Banks of silver coins
surrounded the walls to the height of five feet.
"I thought the jailer would go mad. He sang and laughed and danced and
capered among the gold, till I threatened to strangle him if he made a
sound or wasted time. In his joy he did not notice at first the table
where the diamonds lay. I flung myself upon these, and deftly filled
the pockets of my sailor jacket and trousers with the stones. Ah!
Heaven, I did not take the third of them. Gold ingots lay underneath
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: of the greatest blessings. In other words, it tends to make them sound
of soul and upright, being trained in the real world of actual
things[12] [and, as was said before, our ancestors could not but
perceive they owed their success in war to such instrumentality[13]];
and the chase alone deprives them of none of the other fair and noble
pursuits that they may choose to cultivate, as do those other evil
pleasures, which ought never to be learned. Of such stuff are good
soldiers and good generals made.[14] Naturally, those from whose souls
and bodies the sweat of toil has washed all base and wanton thoughts,
who have implanted in them a passion for manly virtue--these, I say,
are the true nobles.[15] Not theirs will it be to allow their city or
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