| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: fool's head weighed four pound, and Jack's three pound three
ounces and three quarters, how many pennyweights heavier would my
head be than Jack's?' A man that had got his heart in learning
figures would make sums for himself and work 'em in his head.
When he sat at his shoemaking, he'd count his stitches by fives,
and then put a price on his stitches, say half a farthing, and
then see how much money he could get in an hour; and then ask
himself how much money he'd get in a day at that rate; and then
how much ten workmen would get working three, or twenty, or a
hundred years at that rate--and all the while his needle would be
going just as fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: 'Now we shall feed our flocks in peace, and not be afraid to
have music when we dance; for the cruel club-bearer has met
his match, and he will listen for our pipes no more.' Then
they brought him kid's flesh and wine, and the nymphs brought
him honey from the rocks, and he ate, and drank, and slept
again, while the nymphs and shepherds danced and sang. And
when he woke, they begged him to stay; but he would not. 'I
have a great work to do,' he said; 'I must be away toward the
Isthmus, that I may go to Athens.'
But the shepherds said, 'Will you go alone toward Athens?
None travel that way now, except in armed troops.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: 'arrived at the end of the intellectual world' (Republic), he replaces the
veil of mythology, and describes the soul and her attendant genius in the
language of the mysteries or of a disciple of Zoroaster. Nor can we fairly
demand of Plato a consistency which is wanting among ourselves, who
acknowledge that another world is beyond the range of human thought, and
yet are always seeking to represent the mansions of heaven or hell in the
colours of the painter, or in the descriptions of the poet or rhetorician.
15. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not new to the Greeks
in the age of Socrates, but, like the unity of God, had a foundation in the
popular belief. The old Homeric notion of a gibbering ghost flitting away
to Hades; or of a few illustrious heroes enjoying the isles of the blest;
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