| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: him? They seem to me to have no bearing on the point whatever.
SOCRATES: Quite the contrary, my sweet friend: only the poet is talking
in riddles after the fashion of his tribe. For all poetry has by nature an
enigmatical character, and it is by no means everybody who can interpret
it. And if, moreover, the spirit of poetry happen to seize on a man who is
of a begrudging temper and does not care to manifest his wisdom but keeps
it to himself as far as he can, it does indeed require an almost superhuman
wisdom to discover what the poet would be at. You surely do not suppose
that Homer, the wisest and most divine of poets, was unaware of the
impossibility of knowing a thing badly: for it was no less a person than
he who said of Margites that 'he knew many things, but knew them all
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: and cornfields of small extent, but bounded and divided with
hedgerow timber of great age and size. There were few marks of
modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated neither
the solitude of decay nor the bustle of novelty; the houses were
old, but in good repair; and the beautiful little river murmured
freely on its way to the left of the town, neither restrained by
a dam nor bordered by a towing-path.
Upon a gentle eminence, nearly a mile to the southward of the
town, were seen, amongst many venerable oaks and tangled
thickets, the turrets of a castle as old as the walls of York and
Lancaster, but which seemed to have received important
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this
general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with
Napoleon. "If he weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that
interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat
is so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is
afraid, afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!"
"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince Andrew again.
"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him
'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me!
That's the sort of man he is, and nothing more," replied Dolgorukov,
looking round at Bilibin with a smile.
War and Peace |
