| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: strife, for he bent back and smote the bird which carried him on the breast
by the neck, and he in pain let him fall from him to the ground into the
midst of the multitude. And the eagle, with a cry, was borne afar on the
wings of the wind (Il.).'
These are the sort of things which I should say that the prophet ought to
consider and determine.
ION: And you are quite right, Socrates, in saying so.
SOCRATES: Yes, Ion, and you are right also. And as I have selected from
the Iliad and Odyssee for you passages which describe the office of the
prophet and the physician and the fisherman, do you, who know Homer so much
better than I do, Ion, select for me passages which relate to the rhapsode
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a
block above Polk Street made their appearance, promenading
the sidewalks leisurely, deliberately. They were at their
morning's marketing. They were handsome women, beautifully
dressed. They knew by name their butchers and grocers and
vegetable men. From his window McTeague saw them in front
of the stalls, gloved and veiled and daintily shod, the
subservient provision men at their elbows, scribbling
hastily in the order books. They all seemed to know one
another, these grand ladies from the fashionable avenue.
Meetings took place here and there; a conversation was
McTeague |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: indecently abusive; and, as he knew I wrote for the Assembly,
one might have imagined that, when we met, we could hardly avoid
cutting throats; but he was so good-natur'd a man that no personal
difference between him and me was occasion'd by the contest, and we
often din'd together.
One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in
the street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me and spend
the evening; I am to have some company that you will like;" and,
taking me by the arm, he led me to his house. In gay conversation
over our wine, after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much
admir'd the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
