| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: about a rather curious matter that has been brought under my
notice of late. I am afraid you will think it all rather absurd
when I tell my tale. I sometimes think so myself, and that's
just what I made up my mind to come to you, as I know you're a
practical man."
Mr. Villiers was ignorant of the "Memoirs to prove the
Existence of the Devil."
"Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to give you my
advice, to the best of my ability. What is the nature of the
case?"
"It's an extraordinary thing altogether. You know my
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Or who with flowering herbs bestrewn the ground,
And o'er the fountains drawn a leafy veil?-
Who sung the stave I filched from you that day
To Amaryllis wending, our hearts' joy?-
"While I am gone, 'tis but a little way,
Feed, Tityrus, my goats, and, having fed,
Drive to the drinking-pool, and, as you drive,
Beware the he-goat; with his horn he butts."
MOERIS
Ay, or to Varus that half-finished lay,
"Varus, thy name, so still our Mantua live-
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: Socrates of Simonides in the Protagoras, and of similar reasonings in the
first book of the Republic. The discrepancies which Socrates discovers in
the words of Achilles are perhaps as great as those discovered by some of
the modern separatists of the Homeric poems...
At last, Socrates having caught Hippias in the toils of the voluntary and
involuntary, is obliged to confess that he is wandering about in the same
labyrinth; he makes the reflection on himself which others would make upon
him (compare Protagoras). He does not wonder that he should be in a
difficulty, but he wonders at Hippias, and he becomes sensible of the
gravity of the situation, when ordinary men like himself can no longer go
to the wise and be taught by them.
|
