| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic
spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and
treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect
in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in
the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of
a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as
in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or
overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument
'whither the wind blows.' That no conclusion is arrived at is also in
accordance with the character of the earlier dialogues. The resemblances
or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: Tarantula fasted; I found him looking quite well on my return. On
the 20th of August, I again left for a nine days' absence, which my
prisoner bore without food and without detriment to his health. On
the 1st of October, I once more deserted the Tarantula, leaving him
without provisions. On the 21st, I was fifty miles from Valencia
and, as I intended to remain there, I sent a servant to fetch him.
I was sorry to learn that he was not found in the jar, and I never
heard what became of him.
'I will end my observations on the Tarantulae with a short
description of a curious fight between those animals. One day,
when I had had a successful hunt after these Lycosae, I picked out
The Life of the Spider |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: bewildered with excitement, jumped into the exact middle of the roadway,
shouting:
"They come! They come! Charge, buffalo folk, if you will. The
Eater-up-of-Elephants awaits you!"
"You etceterad old fool!" I shouted, but got no farther, for just at
this moment the first of the buffalo, which I could see was an enormous
bull, probably the leader of the herd, accepted Umbezi's invitation and
came, with its nose stuck straight out in front of it. Umbezi's gun
went off, and next instant he went up. Through the smoke I saw his
black bulk in the air, and then heard it alight with a thud on the top
of the rock behind which I was crouching.
Child of Storm |
