| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: de Worde, Caxton's successor. The title is a curious woodcut
with the words "Gesta Romanorum" engraved in an odd-shaped
black letter. It has also numerous rude wood-cuts throughout.
It was from this very work that Shakespeare in all probability
derived the story of the three caskets which in "The Merchant
of Venice" forms so integral a portion of the plot.
Only think of that cloaca being supplied daily with such
dainty bibliographical treasures!
In the Lansdowne Collection at the British Museum is a volume
containing three manuscript dramas of Queen Elizabeth's time, and on
a fly-leaf is a list of fifty-eight plays, with this note at the foot,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: reason is that you are ignorant of them, and therefore in perplexity. Is
not that clear?
ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: But is this always the case, and is a man necessarily perplexed
about that of which he has no knowledge?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly he is.
SOCRATES: And do you know how to ascend into heaven?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And in this case, too, is your judgment perplexed?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: Do you see the reason why, or shall I tell you?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: But the more void within a thing, the more
Entirely it totters at their sure assault.
Thus if first bodies be, as I have taught,
Solid, without a void, they must be then
Eternal; and, if matter ne'er had been
Eternal, long ere now had all things gone
Back into nothing utterly, and all
We see around from nothing had been born-
But since I taught above that naught can be
From naught created, nor the once begotten
To naught be summoned back, these primal germs
Of The Nature of Things |
