| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: add to my stock of enemies, and that in addition he should be paid for
his kind services.
Soc. Because, you know, we agreed that a man's estate was identical
with his possessions?
Crit. Yes, certainly! the good part of his possessions; but the evil
portion! no, I thank you, that I do not call part of a man's
possessions.
Soc. As I understand, you would limit the term to what we may call a
man's useful or advantageous possessions?
Crit. Precisely; if he has things that injure him, I should regard
these rather as a loss than as wealth.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The crimes of
Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils, were still
recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The fact that he had
been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate
popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation,
undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to
the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the
proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more
than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the
fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: make it right, to give you your heart's desire. Did He do it?
Did He hear your prayer? Does He care for your weak love, when
the nations of the earth are going down? What is your poor hope
to Him, when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will
be trodden some day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God?
O Christ!--if there be a Christ,--help me to save it!"
He looked up,--his face white with pain. After a time he said to
her,--
"Help me, Margret! Your prayer was selfish; it was not heard.
Give up your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear to me,
this night when you have lost all, to give yourself to this
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
