| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: themselves. So much so that while the rest of the Hellenes employ[6]
each pretty much their own peculiar mode of speech, habit of life, and
style of dress, the Athenians have adopted a composite type,[7] to
which all sections of Hellas, and the foreigner alike, have
contributed.
[1] Reading after Kirchhoff, {ettous ge . . . kan ei meizon en, ton
dia k.t.l.} See Thuc. i. 143; Isocr. "de Pace," 169 A; Plut.
"Them." 4 (Clough, i. 235).
[2] Lit. "they are superior to their allies."
[3] Reading with Kirchhoff, {dia khreian . . . dia deos}.
[4] Or, "the army marching along the seaboard to the rescue."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: all love and belief in love departed from it--the sadder for its
beauty, like that wondrous Medusa-face, with the passionate,
passionless lips.
At last she was among the fields she had been dreaming of, on a
long narrow pathway leading towards a wood. If there should be a
pool in that wood! It would be better hidden than one in the
fields. No, it was not a wood, only a wild brake, where there had
once been gravel-pits, leaving mounds and hollows studded with
brushwood and small trees. She roamed up and down, thinking there
was perhaps a pool in every hollow before she came to it, till her
limbs were weary, and she sat down to rest. The afternoon was far
Adam Bede |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: heart set hammering in frantic dread by the mysterious lights of
the gloaming. To this, Siegfried, greatly astonished, replies
that on such occasions his heart is altogether healthy and his
sensations perfectly normal Here Mimmy's question is accompanied
by the tremulous sounding of the fire theme with its harmonies
most oppressively disturbed and troubled; whereas with
Siegfried's reply they become quite clear and straightforward,
making the theme sound bold, brilliant, and serene. This is a
typical instance of the way in which the themes are used.
The thematic system gives symphonic interest, reasonableness, and
unity to the music, enabling the composer to exhaust every aspect
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