| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: have charmed away the fear.
And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, Socrates, when you are
gone?
Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and
there are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far and
wide, sparing neither pains nor money; for there is no better way of
spending your money. And you must seek among yourselves too; for you will
not find others better able to make the search.
The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if you
please, let us return to the point of the argument at which we digressed.
By all means, replied Socrates; what else should I please?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: overboard the day before; him he stabbed to the heart, damning him
for a mutineer; and then capered about the body, raving and
swearing and daring us to come on. It was the silliest exhibition;
and yet dangerous too, for the cowardly fellow was plainly working
himself up to another murder.
All of a sudden Ballantrae stepped forth. "Have done with this
play-acting," says he. "Do you think to frighten us with making
faces? We saw nothing of you yesterday, when you were wanted; and
we did well without you, let me tell you that."
There was a murmur and a movement in the crew, of pleasure and
alarm, I thought, in nearly equal parts. As for Teach, he gave a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: intrepidity, and hard work; though all these things do in some cases
tend to beget a less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen
generally; yet, never mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family
these whalemen may, in some primitive instances, live together; for
all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarter-deck
are seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. Indeed,
many are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the skipper
parading his quarter-deck with an elated grandeur not surpassed in
any military navy; nay, extorting almost as much outward homage as if
he wore the imperial purple, and not the shabbiest of pilot-cloth.
And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least
Moby Dick |
