| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: practised by the Sophists--for the following reasons: (1) The transparent
irony of the previous interpretations given by Socrates. (2) The ludicrous
opening of the speech in which the Lacedaemonians are described as the true
philosophers, and Laconic brevity as the true form of philosophy, evidently
with an allusion to Protagoras' long speeches. (3) The manifest futility
and absurdity of the explanation of (Greek), which is hardly consistent
with the rational interpretation of the rest of the poem. The opposition
of (Greek) and (Greek) seems also intended to express the rival doctrines
of Socrates and Protagoras, and is a facetious commentary on their
differences. (4) The general treatment in Plato both of the Poets and the
Sophists, who are their interpreters, and whom he delights to identify with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Mme. de Pimentel the history of his last day's sport; Adrien was
holding forth to Mlle. Laure de Rastignac on Rossini, the newly-risen
music star, and Astolphe, who had got by heart a newspaper paragraph
on a patent plow, was giving the Baron the benefit of the description.
Lucien, luckless poet that he was, did not know that there was scarce
a soul in the room besides Mme. de Bargeton who could understand
poetry. The whole matter-of-fact assembly was there by a
misapprehension, nor did they, for the most part, know what they had
come out for to see. There are some words that draw a public as
unfailingly as the clash of cymbals, the trumpet, or the mountebank's
big drum; "beauty," "glory," "poetry," are words that bewitch the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: the curtains and open the windows wide. How cool the morning air
is! Piccadilly lies at our feet like a long riband of silver. A
faint purple mist hangs over the Park, and the shadows of the white
houses are purple. It is too late to sleep. Let us go down to
Covent Garden and look at the roses. Come! I am tired of thought.
THE TRUTH OF MASKS - A NOTE ON ILLUSION
In many of the somewhat violent attacks that have recently been
made on that splendour of mounting which now characterises our
Shakespearian revivals in England, it seems to have been tacitly
assumed by the critics that Shakespeare himself was more or less
indifferent to the costumes of his actors, and that, could he see
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