| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: evil. Pausanias is very earnest in the defence of such loves; and he
speaks of them as generally approved among Hellenes and disapproved by
barbarians. His speech is 'more words than matter,' and might have been
composed by a pupil of Lysias or of Prodicus, although there is no hint
given that Plato is specially referring to them. As Eryximachus says, 'he
makes a fair beginning, but a lame ending.'
Plato transposes the two next speeches, as in the Republic he would
transpose the virtues and the mathematical sciences. This is done partly
to avoid monotony, partly for the sake of making Aristophanes 'the cause of
wit in others,' and also in order to bring the comic and tragic poet into
juxtaposition, as if by accident. A suitable 'expectation' of Aristophanes
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: The hour has come for us, old hunter. So be it: we have had
our time, but I would that in it I had seen some more such fights
as yesterday's.
'Let them bury me after the fashion of my people, Macumazahn,
and set my eyes towards Zululand;' and he took my hand and shook it,
and then turned to face the advancing foe.
Just then, to my astonishment, the Zu-Vendi officer Kara clambered
over our improvised wall in his quiet, determined sort of way,
and took his stand by the Zulu, unsheathing his sword as he did
so.
'What, comest thou too?' laughed out the old warrior. 'Welcome
Allan Quatermain |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: clearer than the rest, gathering itself into form, and the form was
human beauty and human charity, was the far-off face of Mary
Antrim. She smiled at him from the glory of heaven - she brought
the glory down with her to take him. He bowed his head in
submission and at the same moment another wave rolled over him.
Was it the quickening of joy to pain? In the midst of his joy at
any rate he felt his buried face grow hot as with some communicated
knowledge that had the force of a reproach. It suddenly made him
contrast that very rapture with the bliss he had refused to
another. This breath of the passion immortal was all that other
had asked; the descent of Mary Antrim opened his spirit with a
|
