| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: Ah, well-a-day
Rest your old bones, ye wrinkled crones!
The kettle sings, the firelight dances.
Deep be it quaffed, the magic draught
That fills the soul with golden fancies!
For Youth and Pleasance will not stay,
And ye are withered, worn, and gray.
Ah, well-a-day!
O fair cold face! O form of grace,
For human passion madly yearning!
O weary air of dumb despair,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: coming and going, fills the deep archways. And lastly,
one night in the springtime - or say one morning rather,
at the peep of day - late folk may hear voices of many
men singing a psalm in unison from a church on one side
of the old High Street; and a little after, or perhaps a
little before, the sound of many men singing a psalm in
unison from another church on the opposite side of the
way. There will be something in the words above the dew
of Hermon, and how goodly it is to see brethren dwelling
together in unity. And the late folk will tell
themselves that all this singing denotes the conclusion
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: [14] Or, "God of his good favour vouchsafes as my protector that I
should," etc. For {proxenei} cf. "Anab." VI. v. 14; Soph. "O. C."
465, and "O. T." 1483; and Prof. Jebb's notes ad loc. "the god's
kindly offices grant to me that I should lose my life."
[15] Cf. Plat. "Phaed." 66.
"No doubt," he added, "the gods were right in opposing me at that time
(touching the inquiry, what I was to say in my defence),[16] when you
all thought the great thing was to discover some means of
acquittal;[17] since, had I effected that, it is clear I should have
prepared for myself, not that surcease from life which is in store for
me anon, but to end my days wasted by disease, or by old age, on which
The Apology |
