| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: believe that you mean (and you must not suppose that I am word-catching),
if you allow that the one is superior to the ten thousand?
CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be
natural justice--that the better and wiser should rule and have more than
the inferior.
SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this case:
Let us suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are several of
us, and we have a large common store of meats and drinks, and there are all
sorts of persons in our company having various degrees of strength and
weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is wiser in the matter of food
than all the rest, and he is probably stronger than some and not so strong
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: Two maidens approached. One wore a cap of two staring colors, denoting the
class of persons to which she belonged. They poured out the liquor, and made
the most friendly gesticulations; while a cold perspiration trickled down the
back of the poor Councillor.
"What's to be the end of this! What's to become of me!" groaned he; but he was
forced, in spite of his opposition, to drink with the rest. They took hold of
the worthy man; who, hearing on every side that he was intoxicated, did not in
the least doubt the truth of this certainly not very polite assertion; but on
the contrary, implored the ladies and gentlemen present to procure him a
hackney-coach: they, however, imagined he was talking Russian.
Never before, he thought, had he been in such a coarse and ignorant company;
Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: confirms them in their present ignorance and superstition. When the
pile is burnt, and the discourse at an end, every one makes a large
present to the priest, which is the grand design of this religious
mockery.
To return to the course of the Nile: its waters, after the first
rise, run to the eastward for about a musket-shot, then turning to
the north, continue hidden in the grass and weeds for about a
quarter of a league, and discover themselves for the first time
among some rocks--a sight not to be enjoyed without some pleasure by
those who have read the fabulous accounts of this stream delivered
by the ancients, and the vain conjectures and reasonings which have
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