| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: had heard that he was a corrupter of youth, and had seen him caricatured in
the Clouds of Aristophanes. Secondly, there are the professed accusers,
who are but the mouth-piece of the others. The accusations of both might
be summed up in a formula. The first say, 'Socrates is an evil-doer and a
curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven;
and making the worse appear the better cause, and teaching all this to
others.' The second, 'Socrates is an evil-doer and corrupter of the youth,
who does not receive the gods whom the state receives, but introduces other
new divinities.' These last words appear to have been the actual
indictment (compare Xen. Mem.); and the previous formula, which is a
summary of public opinion, assumes the same legal style.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: But when frosts in the field have pinched the wintering mouse,
Blindly noses and buzzes and hums in the firelit house:
So the sound of the feast gallantly trampled at night,
So it staggered and drooped, and droned in the morning light.
IV. THE RAID
IT chanced that as Rua sat in the valley of silent falls,
He heard a calling of doves from high on the cliffy walls.
Fire had fashioned of yore, and time had broken, the rocks;
There were rooting crannies for trees and nesting-places for flocks;
And he saw on the top of the cliffs, looking up from the pit of the shade,
A flicker of wings and sunshine, and trees that swung in the trade.
Ballads |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: understand his presence; it rouses in me the same wonder and
perplexity as if they were to set a Zulu beside me at the table.
And it seems strange to me, too, that my daughter, whom I am used
to thinking of as a child, should love that cravat, those eyes,
those soft cheeks. . . .
In the old days I used to like my dinner, or at least was
indifferent about it; now it excites in me no feeling but
weariness and irritation. Ever since I became an "Excellency" and
one of the Deans of the Faculty my family has for some reason
found it necessary to make a complete change in our menu and
dining habits. Instead of the simple dishes to which I was
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