| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: fathers and forefathers; considering that life is not life to one who is a
dishonour to his race, and that to such a one neither men nor Gods are
friendly, either while he is on the earth or after death in the world
below. Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be
the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all
possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil. For neither does
wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the
wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and
strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely,
but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and
manifesting forth his cowardice. And all knowledge, when separated from
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: oxygen in coal-gas were strikingly beautiful. When the fumes of
chloride of ammonium (a diamagnetic substance) were mingled with the
oxygen, the cloud of chloride behaved in a most singular manner,--
'The attraction of iron filings,' says Faraday, 'to a magnetic pole
is not more striking than the appearance presented by the oxygen
under these circumstances.'
On observing this deportment the question immediately occurs to him,
--Can we not separate the oxygen of the atmosphere from its nitrogen
by magnetic analysis? It is the perpetual occurrence of such
questions that marks the great experimenter. The attempt to analyze
atmospheric air by magnetic force proved a failure, like the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: curious men: even as I, too, having turned my back upon the sea,
am bearing those few pages in the twilight, with the hope of
finding in an inland valley the silent welcome of some patient
listener.
XLVI.
"A fellow has now no chance of promotion unless he jumps into the
muzzle of a gun and crawls out of the touch-hole."
He who, a hundred years ago, more or less, pronounced the above
words in the uneasiness of his heart, thirsting for professional
distinction, was a young naval officer. Of his life, career,
achievements, and end nothing is preserved for the edification of
The Mirror of the Sea |
