| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: and so further discussion would have been unnecessary. And now I want to
know whether I may depart; or will you keep me here until midnight? I
fancy that I may obtain my release without many words;--if I promise that
to-morrow I will give you an account of all these cases. But at present I
would rather sail in another direction, and go to other matters which
remain to be settled, before the judgment can be given which Philebus
demands.
PROTARCHUS: Very good, Socrates; in what remains take your own course.
SOCRATES: Then after the mixed pleasures the unmixed should have their
turn; this is the natural and necessary order.
PROTARCHUS: Excellent.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: looked at him, and when he saw that he was pale and weary, he gave
him the water. "Only pray don't drink it all," said Gluck. But
the old man drank a great deal and gave him back the bottle two
thirds empty. Then he bade him good speed, and Gluck went on again
merrily. And the path became easier to his feet, and two or three
blades of grass appeared upon it, and some grasshoppers began
singing on the bank beside it, and Gluck thought he had never heard
such merry singing.
Then he went on for another hour, and the thirst increased
on him so that he thought he should be forced to drink. But as
he raised the flask he saw a little child lying panting by the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: friend, Mr Morris, with whom I travel up twice or thrice a week
from Snaresbrook Park, is certainly a gentleman whom I esteem;
but he was scarce a model nephew. As for John, he is of course an
excellent fellow; but if he was the only link that bound one to a
home, I think the most of us would vote for foreign travel. In
the case of Joseph, John (if he were a link at all) was not the
only one; endearing bonds had long enchained the old gentleman to
Bloomsbury; and by these expressions I do not in the least refer
to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, however, he was fond enough), but to
that collection of manuscript notebooks in which his life lay
buried. That he should ever have made up his mind to separate
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