| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: v. 6. That Wound.] Venturi justly observes, that the Padre
d'Aquino has misrepresented the sense of this passage in his
translation.
--dabat ascensum tendentibus ultra
Scissa tremensque silex, tenuique erratica motu.
The verb "muover"' is used in the same signification in the
Inferno, Canto XVIII. 21.
Cosi da imo della roccia scogli
Moven.
--from the rock's low base
Thus flinty paths advanc'd.
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you
changed?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am not changed. But circumstances alter
things.
LADY CHILTERN. Circumstances should never alter principles!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But if I told you -
LADY CHILTERN. What?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That it was necessary, vitally necessary?
LADY CHILTERN. It can never be necessary to do what is not
honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have
loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be?
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: be, you know," he added, "that God out of his great kindness is
intervening in my behalf[14] to suffer me to close my life in the
ripeness of age, and by the gentlest of deaths. For if at this time
sentence of death be passed upon me, it is plain I shall be allowed to
meet an end which, in the opinion of those who have studied the
matter, is not only the easiest in itself, but one which will cause
the least trouble to one's friends,[15] while engendering the deepest
longing for the departed. For of necessity he will only be thought of
with regret and longing who leaves nothing behind unseemly or
discomfortable to haunt the imagination of those beside him, but,
sound of body, and his soul still capable of friendly repose, fades
The Apology |
