| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: And now having offered my prayer I deliver up the argument to Critias, who
is to speak next according to our agreement. (Tim.)
CRITIAS: And I, Timaeus, accept the trust, and as you at first said that
you were going to speak of high matters, and begged that some forbearance
might be shown to you, I too ask the same or greater forbearance for what I
am about to say. And although I very well know that my request may appear
to be somewhat ambitious and discourteous, I must make it nevertheless.
For will any man of sense deny that you have spoken well? I can only
attempt to show that I ought to have more indulgence than you, because my
theme is more difficult; and I shall argue that to seem to speak well of
the gods to men is far easier than to speak well of men to men: for the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: Father Sergius might not hear him, but his words were incisive
and angry.
'Be off, be off! He has blessed you, and what more do you want?
Get along with you, or I'll wring your necks! Move on there! Get
along, you old woman with your dirty leg-bands! Go, go! Where
are you shoving to? You've been told that it is finished.
To-morrow will be as God wills, but for to-day he has finished!'
'Father! Only let my eyes have a glimpse of his dear face!' said
an old woman.
'I'll glimpse you! Where are you shoving to?'
Father Sergius noticed that the merchant seemed to be acting
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: for example, who "broke the barriers of the heavens"--did he
not once play a provincial church-organ, and give music-lessons
to stumbling pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk
on the earth among neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his
gait and his garments than of anything which was to give him
a title to everlasting fame: each of them had his little local
personal history sprinkled with small temptations and sordid cares,
which made the retarding friction of his course towards final
companionship with the immortals. Lydgate was not blind to the
dangers of such friction, but he had plenty of confidence in his
resolution to avoid it as far as possible: being seven-and-twenty,
Middlemarch |
