| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: intimation drew him to the window to see behind the stems of the
young fir trees that bordered his domain, the little string of
lighted carriage windows gliding southward. . . .
Suddenly I began to realise just what it was we were doing.
And now, indeed, I knew what London had been to me, London where I
had been born and educated, the slovenly mother of my mind and all
my ambitions, London and the empire! It seemed to me we must be
going out to a world that was utterly empty. All our significance
fell from us--and before us was no meaning any more. We were
leaving London; my hand, which had gripped so hungrily upon its
complex life, had been forced from it, my fingers left their hold.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: reached, and she was almost glad it had been reached. She made
up her mind in the train home that it should be a decisive
crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with her
there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of
this crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell.
She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to
Morningside Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in
an attitude that would certainly have distressed her mother to
see, and horrified her grandmother beyond measure; she sat with
her knees up to her chin and her hands clasped before them, and
she was so lost in thought that she discovered with a start, from
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: Socrates disclosed himself to his companions as a beautiful and noble
being, who would reason and debate with them concerning virtue and
other human interests in the noblest manner. And of these two I know
that as long as they were companions of Socrates even they were
temperate, not assuredly from fear of being fined or beaten by
Socrates, but because they were persuaded for the nonce of the
excellence of such conduct.
[6] {sophrosune} = "sound-mindedness," "temperence." See below, IV.
iii. 1.
Perhaps some self-styled philosophers[7] may here answer: "Nay, the
man truly just can never become unjust, the temperate man can never
The Memorabilia |
