| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: thy lips. -
If I do, said I, I shall perish; - so I took her by the hand, and
led her to the door, and begg'd she would not forget the lesson I
had given her. - She said, indeed she would not; - and, as she
uttered it with some earnestness, she turn'd about, and gave me
both her hands, closed together, into mine; - it was impossible not
to compress them in that situation; - I wish'd to let them go; and
all the time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against it,
- and still I held them on. - In two minutes I found I had all the
battle to fight over again; - and I felt my legs and every limb
about me tremble at the idea.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government;
their names are preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of
the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages.
For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men
who dwelt in the mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing,
and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little
about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their
children; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew
only by obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children
lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their
attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: complex industrial life as that which surrounds us to-day. But I
have not yet quite done with the Athenians. Before leaving this
part of the subject, I must mention one further circumstance
which tends to make ancient life appear in our eyes more sunny
and healthy and less distressed, than the life of modern times.
And in this instance, too, though we are not dealing with any
immediate or remote effects of leisureliness, we still have to
note the peculiar advantage gained by the absence of a great
complexity of interests in the ancient community.
With respect to religion, the Athenians were peculiarly situated.
They had for the most part outgrown the primitive terrorism of
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
