| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: now that I have discussed the matter with you. So I asked him whether by
the brave he meant the confident. Yes, he replied, and the impetuous or
goers. (You may remember, Protagoras, that this was your answer.)
He assented.
Well then, I said, tell us against what are the courageous ready to go--
against the same dangers as the cowards?
No, he answered.
Then against something different?
Yes, he said.
Then do cowards go where there is safety, and the courageous where there is
danger?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?
And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;
No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.
The foe is merciless and will not pity,
For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.
The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.--
Come, York and Richard, Warwick, and the rest;
I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breast.
[He faints.]
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: has laid by in England here.
Water? But water is too simple a thing to have dug out all this
great glen.
My dear child, the most wonderful part of Madam How's work is,
that she does such great things and so many different things, with
one and the same tool, which looks to you so simple, though it
really is not so. Water, for instance, is not a simple thing, but
most complicated; and we might spend hours in talking about water,
without having come to the end of its wonders. Still Madam How is
a great economist, and never wastes her materials. She is like
the sailor who boasted (only she never boasts) that, if he had but
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