| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes --
It is strange how often a heart must be broken
Before the years can make it wise.
The Long Hill
I must have passed the crest a while ago
And now I am going down --
Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,
But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.
All the morning I thought how proud I should be
To stand there straight as a queen,
Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me --
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: prepare a defence, and also that Socrates himself declared this to be
unnecessary, on the ground that all his life long he had been preparing
against that hour. For the speech breathes throughout a spirit of
defiance, (ut non supplex aut reus sed magister aut dominus videretur esse
judicum' (Cic. de Orat.); and the loose and desultory style is an imitation
of the 'accustomed manner' in which Socrates spoke in 'the agora and among
the tables of the money-changers.' The allusion in the Crito may, perhaps,
be adduced as a further evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts.
But in the main it must be regarded as the ideal of Socrates, according to
Plato's conception of him, appearing in the greatest and most public scene
of his life, and in the height of his triumph, when he is weakest, and yet
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: but she thought this beat it almost.
"I don't quite see," said Irais in a hushed voice, as though
she were in a holy place,"how the two can be compared."
"Yes, Dresden is more convenient, of course," replied Minora;
after which we turned away and thought we would keep her quiet
by feeding her, so we went back to the sleigh and had the horses
taken out and their cloths put on, and they were walked up and
down a distant glade while we sat in the sleigh and picnicked.
It is a hard day for the horses,--nearly thirty miles there and back
and no stable in the middle; but they are so fat and spoiled that it
cannot do them much harm sometimes to taste the bitterness of life.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
