| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: doing ill is to be deprived of knowledge), but the bad man will never
become bad, for he is always bad; and if he were to become bad, he must
previously have been good. Thus the words of the poem tend to show that on
the one hand a man cannot be continuously good, but that he may become good
and may also become bad; and again that
'They are the best for the longest time whom the gods love.'
All this relates to Pittacus, as is further proved by the sequel. For he
adds:--
'Therefore I will not throw away my span of life to no purpose in searching
after the impossible, hoping in vain to find a perfectly faultless man
among those who partake of the fruit of the broad-bosomed earth: if I find
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: figure, and there are lesser performers as well:--the insolence of
Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus, the patronizing style of
Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus and Hippias, are all part of
the entertainment. To reproduce this living image the same sort of effort
is required as in translating poetry. The language, too, is of a finer
quality; the mere prose English is slow in lending itself to the form of
question and answer, and so the ease of conversation is lost, and at the
same time the dialectical precision with which the steps of the argument
are drawn out is apt to be impaired.
II. In the Introductions to the Dialogues there have been added some
essays on modern philosophy, and on political and social life. The chief
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: have to stay all night,'--and down we camped in the antechamber.
Presently the doors began to open and shut, and feet and voices came
along. I felt badly. The guests were arriving for dinner. You can see
the appearance it had. The countess sent her maid to coax Madame
Mahuchet: 'Pay you to-morrow!' in short, all the snares! Nothing took.
The countess, dressed to the nines, went to the dining-room. Mahuchet
heard her and opened the door. Gracious! when she saw that table
sparkling with silver, the covers to the dishes and the chandeliers
all glittering like a jewel-case, didn't she go off like soda-water
and fire her shot: 'When people spend the money of others they should
be sober and not give dinner-parties. Think of your being a countess
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