| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: cylinders, with handles in which were small pebbles: others
were shaped like pails; and others like cooking pots and pans.
Some of the most attractive were hollow wood balls,
baskets, pails and bottles, gorgeously painted, with long
handles, necks, or bails. The paint was soon transferred
from the face of the toy to that of the first child that
happened to play with it, which child was of course, our own
little girl.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Koran: misbelief in Him and in the Sacred Mosque, and turning His people
out therefrom, is a greater in God's sight; and sedition is a
greater sin than slaughter.'
They will not cease from fighting you until they turn you from
your religion if they can; but whosoever of you is turned from his
religion and dies while still a misbeliever; these are those whose
works are vain in this world and the next; they are the fellows of the
Fire, and they shall dwell therein for aye.
Verily, those who believe, and those who flee, and those who wage
war in God's way; these may hope for God's mercy, for God is forgiving
and merciful.
The Koran |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: poem in which he described the entertainment of Heracles, who was a
connexion of the family, setting forth how in virtue of this relationship
he was hospitably received by an ancestor of Lysis; this ancestor was
himself begotten of Zeus by the daughter of the founder of the deme. And
these are the sort of old wives' tales which he sings and recites to us,
and we are obliged to listen to him.
When I heard this, I said: O ridiculous Hippothales! how can you be making
and singing hymns in honour of yourself before you have won?
But my songs and verses, he said, are not in honour of myself, Socrates.
You think not? I said.
Nay, but what do you think? he replied.
Lysis |
