| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: explanation of this silence? I will tell you. It is an intimation that
what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that
death is an evil are in error. For the customary sign would surely have
opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.
Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason
to hope that death is a good; for one of two things--either death is a
state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a
change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you
suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him
who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For
if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: in the youth's and drew him forward. "Come
on, Henry. I'll take keer 'a yeh."
As they went on together the loud private
called out after them: "Put 'im t' sleep in my
blanket, Simpson. An'--hol' on a minnit--here's
my canteen. It's full 'a coffee. Look at his head
by th' fire an' see how it looks. Maybe it's a
pretty bad un. When I git relieved in a couple
'a minnits, I'll be over an' see t' him."
The youth's senses were so deadened that his
friend's voice sounded from afar and he could
 The Red Badge of Courage |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: hoofs, and dogs of chase, and the stranger of another land'?
I do not think that he was wrong.
You think that he is right?
Yes.
Then, Menexenus, the conclusion is, that what is beloved, whether loving or
hating, may be dear to the lover of it: for example, very young children,
too young to love, or even hating their father or mother when they are
punished by them, are never dearer to them than at the time when they are
being hated by them.
I think that what you say is true.
And, if so, not the lover, but the beloved, is the friend or dear one?
 Lysis |