| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: fever, or suffer from ophthalmia? Or do you believe that a man may labour
under some other disease, even although he has none of these complaints?
Surely, they are not the only maladies which exist?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And is every kind of ophthalmia a disease?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And every disease ophthalmia?
ALCIBIADES: Surely not. But I scarcely understand what I mean myself.
SOCRATES: Perhaps, if you give me your best attention, 'two of us' looking
together, we may find what we seek.
ALCIBIADES: I am attending, Socrates, to the best of my power.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: without going deeper into the mysteries of the dressing-table, I
will tell you that I myself, like many other honest folks, do not
like to see the blank, black front of a large mirror in a room
dimly lighted, and where the reflection of the candle seems
rather to lose itself in the deep obscurity of the glass than to
be reflected back again into the apartment, That space of inky
darkness seems to be a field for Fancy to play her revels in.
She may call up other features to meet us, instead of the
reflection of our own; or, as in the spells of Hallowe'en, which
we learned in childhood, some unknown form may be seen peeping
over our shoulder. In short, when I am in a ghost-seeing humour,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: The guards were less curious, and got out as soon as
they got permission.
CHAPTER XVII.
A ROYAL BANQUET
MADAME, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no
doubt judged that I was deceived by her excuse;
for her fright dissolved away, and she was soon so
importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill
somebody, that the thing grew to be embarrassing.
However, to my relief she was presently interrupted by
the call to prayers. I will say this much for the
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
