| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: who has made so many good speakers, and one who was the best among all the
Hellenes--Pericles, the son of Xanthippus.
MENEXENUS: And who is she? I suppose that you mean Aspasia.
SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and besides her I had Connus, the son of Metrobius,
as a master, and he was my master in music, as she was in rhetoric. No
wonder that a man who has received such an education should be a finished
speaker; even the pupil of very inferior masters, say, for example, one who
had learned music of Lamprus, and rhetoric of Antiphon the Rhamnusian,
might make a figure if he were to praise the Athenians among the Athenians.
MENEXENUS: And what would you be able to say if you had to speak?
SOCRATES: Of my own wit, most likely nothing; but yesterday I heard
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: question before us, which is the meaning of the statement, that right
opinion with rational definition or explanation is the most perfect form of
knowledge.
THEAETETUS: We must not.
SOCRATES: Well, and what is the meaning of the term 'explanation'? I
think that we have a choice of three meanings.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting one's
thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the stream
which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not explanation
appear to be of this nature?
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: which he had now become the subject.
Cornelius travelled much in foreign lands after the death of his
persecutor, the Duke of Burgundy; and during his absence the king
caused his premises to be guarded by a detachment of his own Scottish
guard. Such royal solicitude made the courtiers believe that the old
miser had bequeathed his property to Louis XI. When at home, the
torconnier went out but little; but the lords of the court paid him
frequent visits. He lent them money rather liberally, though
capricious in his manner of doing so. On certain days he refused to
give them a penny; the next day he would offer them large
sums,--always at high interest and on good security. A good Catholic,
|
