| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: Socrates into partnership; and do you and he ask and answer one another's
questions: for, as he has well said, we are deliberating about the most
important of our concerns. I hope that you will see fit to comply with our
request.
NICIAS: I see very clearly, Lysimachus, that you have only known Socrates'
father, and have no acquaintance with Socrates himself: at least, you can
only have known him when he was a child, and may have met him among his
fellow-wardsmen, in company with his father, at a sacrifice, or at some
other gathering. You clearly show that you have never known him since he
arrived at manhood.
LYSIMACHUS: Why do you say that, Nicias?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: But Miss Patty set her pretty mouth--both those girls have their
father's mouth--and held her sister out at arm's length and
looked at her.
"Listen," she said. "Do you know what you have done to me? Do
you know that when father knows this he's going to annul the
marriage or have Mr. Carter arrested for kidnaping or
abduction?--whatever it is." Mrs. Dick puckered her face to cry,
and Mr. Dick took a step forward, but Miss Patty waved him off.
"You know father as well as I do, Dolly. You know what he is,
and lately he's been awful. He's not well--it's his liver
again--and he won't listen to anything. Why, the Austrian
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: argument.
CRITIAS: No, by heaven, I should be a madman if I were. But why do you
not finish the argument which proves that gold and silver and other things
which seem to be wealth are not real wealth? For I have been exceedingly
delighted to hear the discourses which you have just been holding.
SOCRATES: My argument, Critias (I said), appears to have given you the
same kind of pleasure which you might have derived from some rhapsode's
recitation of Homer; for you do not believe a word of what has been said.
But come now, give me an answer to this question. Are not certain things
useful to the builder when he is building a house?
CRITIAS: They are.
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