| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: It will sound strange that dry bread could possibly be a delicacy
to any one. To me it is so much so that at the close of each meal
I carefully eat whatever crumbs may be left on my tin plate, or
have fallen on the rough towel that one uses as a cloth so as not
to soil one's table; and I do so not from hunger - I get now quite
sufficient food - but simply in order that nothing should be wasted
of what is given to me. So one should look on love.
Christ, like all fascinating personalities, had the power of not
merely saying beautiful things himself, but of making other people
say beautiful things to him; and I love the story St. Mark tells us
about the Greek woman, who, when as a trial of her faith he said to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: degrees of evidence by which they are supported. The traditions of the
oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may have formed the basis of
semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be of the same mixed character
which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates, although the form of them
is different. But the writings of Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle,
seem never to have been confused with the writings of his disciples: this
was probably due to their definite form, and to their inimitable
excellence. The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to
the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they
may be altogether spurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly
admitted. Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Dread nightly thief afold and ravening wolves,
Or Spanish desperadoes in the rear.
And oft the shy wild asses thou wilt chase,
With hounds, too, hunt the hare, with hounds the doe;
Oft from his woodland wallowing-den uprouse
The boar, and scare him with their baying, and drive,
And o'er the mountains urge into the toils
Some antlered monster to their chiming cry.
Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn
Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell
With fumes of galbanum to drive away.
Georgics |
