| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: smallness and equality?
Clearly.
Further, it must surely in a sort partake of being?
How so?
It must be so, for if not, then we should not speak the truth in saying
that the one is not. But if we speak the truth, clearly we must say what
is. Am I not right?
Yes.
And since we affirm that we speak truly, we must also affirm that we say
what is?
Certainly.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: the mischief wrought by the Martians until I reached Welling-
ton Street, and there I saw the red weed clambering over
the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge.
At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common
contrasts of that grotesque time--a sheet of paper flaunting
against a thicket of the red weed, transfixed by a stick that
kept it in place. It was the placard of the first newspaper
to resume publication--the DAILY MAIL. I bought a copy
for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of it
was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing
had amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of ad-
War of the Worlds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound
caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was
swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which
broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those
great white teeth of his had met in my thigh--I heard them grate against
the bone. I yelled out in agony, for I did not feel in the least
benumbed and happy, like Dr. Livingstone--whom, by the way, I knew very
well--and gave myself up for dead. But suddenly, at that moment, the
lion's grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me, swaying to and
fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing, wide opened.
Then he roared, and the sound shook the rocks.
Long Odds |
