| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: are cowards under the same conditions, as I should imagine.
LACHES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Now I was asking about courage and cowardice in general. And I
will begin with courage, and once more ask, What is that common quality,
which is the same in all these cases, and which is called courage? Do you
now understand what I mean?
LACHES: Not over well.
SOCRATES: I mean this: As I might ask what is that quality which is
called quickness, and which is found in running, in playing the lyre, in
speaking, in learning, and in many other similar actions, or rather which
we possess in nearly every action that is worth mentioning of arms, legs,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: no need to call anyone."
"I was not going to," I said.
"Are you alone on deck?"
"Yes."
I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder
to swim away beyond my ken--mysterious as he came. But, for the moment,
this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the sea
(it was certainly the nearest land to the ship) wanted only to know the time.
I told him. And he, down there, tentatively:
"I suppose your captain's turned in?"
"I am sure he isn't," I said.
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: [The manner in which this trifle was introduced at the time to
Mr. F. M. Reynolds, editor of The Keepsake of 1828, leaves no
occasion for a preface.]
AUGUST 1831.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE.
You have asked me, sir, to point out a subject for the pencil,
and I feel the difficulty of complying with your request,
although I am not certainly unaccustomed to literary composition,
or a total stranger to the stores of history and tradition, which
afford the best copies for the painter's art. But although SICUT
PICTURA POESIS is an ancient and undisputed axiom--although
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