| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I have said, of
the speaker's detachment, - and this is why, of two old men, the
one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible
authority; for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively
interests and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men
great friends; each swore by the other's father; the father of each
swore by the other lad; and yet each pair of parent and child were
perpetually by the ears. This is typical: it reads like the germ
of some kindly comedy.
The old appear in conversation in two characters: the critically
silent and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what we
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Koran: so ye do.'
Said they, 'O our father! what ails thee that thou wilt not trust us
with Joseph while we are unto him sincere? Send him with us
to-morrow to revel and to play, and, verily, we over him will keep
good guard.'
Said he, 'Verily, it grieves me that ye should go off with him,
for I fear lest the wolf devour him while ye of him do take no heed.'
Said they, 'Why, if the wolf should devour him while we are (such) a
band, verily, we then should deserve to lose!'
And when they had gone off with him and agreed to put him in the
depths of the pit, and we inspired him, 'Thou shalt surely inform them
The Koran |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: estates and others, to be done to death with violence by their own
slaves is no unheard-of thing. Supposing, then, the first and foremost
duty laid on mercenary troops were this: they are the body-guards of
the whole public, and bound as such to come to the assistance of all
members of the state alike, in case they shall detect some mischief
brewing[3] (and miscreants do spring up in the hearts of states, as we
all know); I say then, if these mercenary troops were under orders to
act as guardians of the citizens,[4] the latter would recognise to
whom they were indebted.
[3] "If they become aware of anything of that sort." Is not this
modelled on the {krupteia}? See Pater, "Plato and Platonism," ch.
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