| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Cause (which indeed was all things), Noesis Noeseon, "the Thought of
Thoughts," whom he discovered by irrefragable processes of logic, and in
whom the philosophers believe privately, leaving Serapis to the women
and the sailors? All they had to do was to follow in his steps; to take
each of them a branch, of science or literature, or as many branches as
one man conveniently can; and working them out on the approved methods,
end in a few years, as Alexander did, by weeping on the utmost shore of
creation that there are no more worlds left to conquer.
Alas! the Muses are shy and wild; and though they will haunt, like
skylarks, on the bleakest northern moor as cheerfully as on the sunny
hills of Greece, and rise thence singing into the heaven of heavens, yet
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: engrossed our minds, we were perhaps less sensible of all our
labours and difficulties; so violent an apprehension of one danger
made us look on many others with unconcern; our pains at last found
some intermission at the foot of the mountains of Duan, the frontier
of Abyssinia, which separates it from the country of the Moors,
through which we had travelled.
Here we imagined we might repose securely, a felicity we had long
been strangers to. Here we began to rejoice at the conclusion of
our labours; the place was cool and pleasant, the water was
excellent, and the birds melodious. Some of our company went into
the wood to divert themselves with hearing the birds and frightening
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: most affected with it seem most to partake of that particle of the
divinity which distinguishes mankind from the inferior creation."
[8] {alogous}, i.e. "without speach and reason"; cf. modern Greek {o
alogos} = the horse (sc. the animal par excellence). See
"Horsemanship," viii. 14.
[9] {ede}, "ipso facto."
[10] See "Anab." I. vii. 4; Frotscher ap. Breit. cf. Cic. "ad Fam." v.
17. 5, "ut et hominem te et virum esse meminisses."
[11] Or, "joyance."
To these arguments Hiero replied: Nay, but, Simonides, the honours and
proud attributes bestowed on tyrants have much in common with their
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