| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: till Mr. Bulstrode, who at the end of his speech had cast his
eyes on the floor, now raised them with an examining glance,
which Will met fully, saying--
"I suppose you did know of my mother's existence, and knew where she
might have been found."
Bulstrode shrank--there was a visible quivering in his face and hands.
He was totally unprepared to have his advances met in this way,
or to find himself urged into more revelation than he had beforehand
set down as needful. But at that moment he dared not tell a lie,
and he felt suddenly uncertain of his ground which he had trodden
with some confidence before.
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: knowledge, he can have as yet no conceit of knowledge. In this manner
Socrates reads a lesson to Hippothales, the foolish lover of Lysis,
respecting the style of conversation which he should address to his
beloved.
After the return of Menexenus, Socrates, at the request of Lysis, asks him
a new question: 'What is friendship? You, Menexenus, who have a friend
already, can tell me, who am always longing to find one, what is the secret
of this great blessing.'
When one man loves another, which is the friend--he who loves, or he who is
loved? Or are both friends? From the first of these suppositions they are
driven to the second; and from the second to the third; and neither the two
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by
the words of Socrates. For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher
has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At
the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more
transparent than in the undoubted dialogues of Plato. We know, too, that
Alcibiades was a favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues
bearing this name passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to
contemporaries of Socrates and Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real
external evidence (for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot
be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks
either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we
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