| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: sometimes obliged to take a second or even a third dose.
Then, said Socrates, let him mind his business and be prepared to give the
poison twice or even thrice if necessary; that is all.
I knew quite well what you would say, replied Crito; but I was obliged to
satisfy him.
Never mind him, he said.
And now, O my judges, I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher
has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after
death he may hope to obtain the greatest good in the other world. And how
this may be, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavour to explain. For I deem
that the true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: big scrogs of birchwood; and away at the far end towards
Balachulish, little wee red soldiers were dipping up and down
over hill and howe, and growing smaller every minute. There was
no cheering now, for I think they had other uses for what breath
was left them; but they still stuck to the trail, and doubtless
thought that we were close in front of them.
Alan watched them, smiling to himself.
"Ay," said he, "they'll be gey weary before they've got to the
end of that employ! And so you and me, David, can sit down and
eat a bite, and breathe a bit longer, and take a dram from my
bottle. Then we'll strike for Aucharn, the house of my kinsman,
Kidnapped |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: form. They are the offspring of other stories which were
sun-myths; they are stories which conform to the sun-myth type
after the manner above illustrated in the paper on Light and
Darkness. [Hence there is nothing unintelligible in the
inconsistency--which seems to puzzle Max Muller (Science of
Language, 6th ed. Vol. II. p. 516, note 20)--of investing
Paris with many of the characteristics of the children of
light. Supposing, as we must, that the primitive sense of the
Iliad-myth had as entirely disappeared in the Homeric age, as
the primitive sense of the Hamlet-myth had disappeared in the
times of Elizabeth, the fit ground for wonder is that such
Myths and Myth-Makers |
