| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: with the character that makes the centre of the story of this book.
Whimsical touches arise out of this strength of character and
readiness of resource, as when he tells of the taste of the
Abyssinians for raw cow's flesh, with a sauce high in royal
Abyssinian favour, made of the cow's gall and contents of its
entrails, of which, when he was pressed to partake, he could only
excuse himself and his brethren by suggesting that it was too good
for such humble missionaries. Out of distinguished respect for it,
they refrained from putting it into their mouths.
Good Father Lobo gave up the desire of his heart, when it was proved
unattainable, and returned to India six years after the breaking up
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: ALCIBIADES: None.
SOCRATES: I do not suppose that you ever saw or heard of men quarrelling
over the principles of health and disease to such an extent as to go to war
and kill one another for the sake of them?
ALCIBIADES: No indeed.
SOCRATES: But of the quarrels about justice and injustice, even if you
have never seen them, you have certainly heard from many people, including
Homer; for you have heard of the Iliad and Odyssey?
ALCIBIADES: To be sure, Socrates.
SOCRATES: A difference of just and unjust is the argument of those poems?
ALCIBIADES: True.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: not reckon, try and show me the line.
BOY: Indeed, Socrates, I do not know.
SOCRATES: Do you see, Meno, what advances he has made in his power of
recollection? He did not know at first, and he does not know now, what is
the side of a figure of eight feet: but then he thought that he knew, and
answered confidently as if he knew, and had no difficulty; now he has a
difficulty, and neither knows nor fancies that he knows.
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: Is he not better off in knowing his ignorance?
MENO: I think that he is.
SOCRATES: If we have made him doubt, and given him the 'torpedo's shock,'
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