| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: mummies, drops from their quintessences, which satisfy the heart and
conscience as little as they do the logical faculties. His Greek gods
and heroes, even his Alcibiades and Socrates, are "ideas;" that is,
symbols of certain notions or qualities: their flesh and bones, their
heart and brain, have been distilled away, till nothing is left but a
word, a notion, which may patch a hole in his huge heaven-and-earth-
embracing system. He, too, is a commentator and a deducer; all has been
discovered; and he tries to discover nothing more. Those who followed
him seem to have commented on his comments. With him Neoplatonism
properly ends. Is its last utterance a culmination or a fall? Have the
Titans sealed heaven, or died of old age, "exhibiting," as Gibbon says
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: about noon to the place where Alexander was, and seeing him almost
choked with thirst, presently filled a helmet and offered it him.
He asked them to whom they were carrying the water; they told him
to their children, adding, that if his life were but saved, it was
no matter for them, they should be able well enough to repair that
loss, though they all perished. Then he took the helmet into his
hands, and looking round about, when he saw all those who were
near him stretching their heads out and looking, earnestly after
the drink, he returned it again with thanks without tasting a drop
of it, "For," said he, "if I alone should drink, the rest will be
out of heart." The soldiers no sooner took notice of his
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,
And sweet as English air could make her, she:
But Walter hailed a score of names upon her,
And 'petty Ogress', and 'ungrateful Puss',
And swore he longed at college, only longed,
All else was well, for she-society.
They boated and they cricketed; they talked
At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics;
They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans;
They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends,
And caught the blossom of the flying terms,
|
