| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: Comparative Anatomy, with a care and a reverence, a caution and a
severe induction, which had been never before applied to them; and
thus gradually, in the last half-century, the whole choir of
cosmical sciences have acquired a soundness, severity, and fulness,
which render them, as mere intellectual exercises, as valuable to a
manly mind as Mathematics and Metaphysics.
But how very lately have they attained that firm and honourable
standing ground! It is a question whether, even twenty years ago,
Geology, as it then stood, was worth troubling one's head about, so
little had been really proved. And heavy and uphill was the work,
even within the last fifteen years, of those who stedfastly set
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: 'My God!' I cried. And I stood looking at her until something
of the horror in my eyes crept into hers, and she shuddered and
stepped back from me.
'What is it? What is it?' she whispered, clasping her hands.
And with all the colour gone suddenly from her cheeks she peered
trembling into the corners and towards the door. 'There is no
one here.'
I forced myself to speak, though I was trembling all over like a
man in an ague. 'No, Mademoiselle, there is no one here,' I
muttered. 'There is no one here.' And then I let my head fall
on my breast, and I stood before her, the statue of despair. Had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: yet in spite of all, Meletus, you will have it that by such habits I
corrupt the young. We know, I fancy, what such corrupting influences
are; and perhaps you will tell us if you know of any one who, under my
influence, has been changed from a religous into an irreligious man;
who, from being sober-minded, has become prodigal; from being a
moderate drinker has become a wine-bibber and a drunkard; from being a
lover of healthy honest toil has become effeminate, or under the
thrall of some other wicked pleasure."
[28] Lit. "whom do you know," and so throughout.
[29] Cf. Plat. "Phaed." 66 C.
[30] Or, "so attempered and adjusted." The phrase savours of "cynic."
The Apology |
