| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is to be a
public funeral?
SOCRATES: Yes, I know. And whom did they choose?
MENEXENUS: No one; they delayed the election until tomorrow, but I believe
that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.
SOCRATES: O Menexenus! Death in battle is certainly in many respects a
noble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although he may
have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise man who
has long ago prepared what he has to say, although he who is praised may
not have been good for much. The speakers praise him for what he has done
and for what he has not done--that is the beauty of them--and they steal
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: at the yeomen; but when the four men saw the hounds so coming,
all with one accord, saving only Will Scarlet, drew each man
his goose feather to his ear and let fly his shaft.
And now the old ballad telleth of a wondrous thing that happened, for thus
it says, that each dog so shot at leaped lightly aside, and as the arrow
passed him whistling, caught it in his mouth and bit it in twain.
Now it would have been an ill day for these four good fellows
had not Will Scarlet stepped before the others and met the hounds
as they came rushing. "Why, how now, Fangs!" cried he sternly.
"Down, Beauty! Down, sirrah! What means this?"
At the sound of his voice each dog shrank back quickly and then
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: during his slumbers. There was a trouble on his
brow amounting almost to agony. His hands and
arms moved convulsively, as if struggling with the
nightmare; and besides several ejaculations in Hebrew,
the following were distinctly heard in the
Norman-English, or mixed language of the country:
``For the sake of the God of Abraham, spare
an unhappy old man! I am poor, I am penniless
---should your irons wrench my limbs asunder, I
could not gratify you!''
The Palmer awaited not the end of the Jew's
Ivanhoe |
