| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Were to thy fury pain proportion'd full."
Next turning round to me with milder lip
He spake: "This of the seven kings was one,
Who girt the Theban walls with siege, and held,
As still he seems to hold, God in disdain,
And sets his high omnipotence at nought.
But, as I told him, his despiteful mood
Is ornament well suits the breast that wears it.
Follow me now; and look thou set not yet
Thy foot in the hot sand, but to the wood
Keep ever close." Silently on we pass'd
 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: My boys' playroom, in which is a carpenter's bench, a lathe,
and no end of litter, is never tidied--perhaps it can't be,
or perhaps their youthful vigour won't stand it--but my workroom
must needs be dusted daily, with the delusive promise that
each book and paper shall be replaced exactly where it was.
The damage done by such continued treatment is incalculable.
At certain times these observances are kept more religiously
than others; but especially should the book-lover, married
or single, beware of the Ides of March. So soon as February is
dead and gone, a feeling of unrest seizes the housewife's mind.
This increases day by day, and becomes dominant towards the middle
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: taken place in his philosophy (see above). That twentieth debatable
portion scarcely in any degree affects our judgment of Plato, either as a
thinker or a writer, and though suggesting some interesting questions to
the scholar and critic, is of little importance to the general reader.
MENEXENUS
by
Plato (see Appendix I above)
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
The Menexenus has more the character of a rhetorical exercise than any
other of the Platonic works. The writer seems to have wished to emulate
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