| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same men can believe
in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that there are gods
and demigods and heroes.
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate
defence is unnecessary, but I know only too well how many are the enmities
which I have incurred, and this is what will be my destruction if I am
destroyed;--not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the
world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the
death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.
Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life
which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may fairly
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: hankering to kiss you.
[34] Lit. "the arguments proposed have gone the round."
[35] i.e. "the boy and girl." Al. "the present company, who are so
eager to bestow on you their kisses."
Oh, Socrates (he answered, deprecatingly), will you not leave it to
the arbitrament of Cleinias?
Then Socrates: Will you never tire of repeating that one name? It is
Cleinias here, there, and everywhere with you.
Crit. And if his name died on my lips, think you my mind would less
recall his memory? Know you not, I bear so clear an image of him in my
soul, that had I the sculptor's or the limner's skill, I might portray
The Symposium |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was
covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in gold the
Canterville coat-of-arms. By the side of the hearse and the
coaches walked the servants with lighted torches, and the whole
procession was wonderfully impressive. Lord Canterville was the
chief mourner, having come up specially from Wales to attend the
funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little Virginia.
Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington
and the three boys, and in the last carriage was Mrs. Umney. It
was generally felt that, as she had been frightened by the ghost
for more than fifty years of her life, she had a right to see the
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