| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: written word. The continuous thread which appears and reappears throughout
is rhetoric; this is the ground into which the rest of the Dialogue is
worked, in parts embroidered with fine words which are not in Socrates'
manner, as he says, 'in order to please Phaedrus.' The speech of Lysias
which has thrown Phaedrus into an ecstacy is adduced as an example of the
false rhetoric; the first speech of Socrates, though an improvement,
partakes of the same character; his second speech, which is full of that
higher element said to have been learned of Anaxagoras by Pericles, and
which in the midst of poetry does not forget order, is an illustration of
the higher or true rhetoric. This higher rhetoric is based upon dialectic,
and dialectic is a sort of inspiration akin to love (compare Symp.); in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: ribboned, produced an answerable disturbance in our hearts. We
were within sniff of Paris, it seemed. And here were females of
our own species playing croquet, just as if Precy had been a place
in real life, instead of a stage in the fairyland of travel. For,
to be frank, the peasant woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman
at all, and after having passed by such a succession of people in
petticoats digging and hoeing and making dinner, this company of
coquettes under arms made quite a surprising feature in the
landscape, and convinced us at once of being fallible males.
The inn at Precy is the worst inn in France. Not even in Scotland
have I found worse fare. It was kept by a brother and sister,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: condition of a husbandman,) in a dish of about four-and-twenty
feet diameter. The company were, the farmer and his wife, three
children, and an old grandmother. When they were sat down, the
farmer placed me at some distance from him on the table, which
was thirty feet high from the floor. I was in a terrible fright,
and kept as far as I could from the edge, for fear of falling.
The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread on a
trencher, and placed it before me. I made her a low bow, took
out my knife and fork, and fell to eat, which gave them exceeding
delight. The mistress sent her maid for a small dram cup, which
held about two gallons, and filled it with drink; I took up the
Gulliver's Travels |
