| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: master, I suppose, may as well give her to him at once for a lawful
wife."
"Nobody can object to that," said Don Quixote.
"Then since that may be," said Sancho, "there is nothing for it
but to commend ourselves to God, and let fortune take what course it
will."
"God guide it according to my wishes and thy wants," said Don
Quixote, "and mean be he who thinks himself mean."
"In God's name let him be so," said Sancho: "I am an old
Christian, and to fit me for a count that's enough."
"And more than enough for thee," said Don Quixote; "and even wert
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: such as may be supposed to have prevailed in the Megarian School (compare
Cratylus, etc.). The criticism on his own doctrine of Ideas has also been
considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the
metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself. To the
latter part of the dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he
himself describes the earlier philosophers in the Sophist: 'They went on
their way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not.'
The Parmenides in point of style is one of the best of the Platonic
writings; the first portion of the dialogue is in no way defective in ease
and grace and dramatic interest; nor in the second part, where there was no
room for such qualities, is there any want of clearness or precision. The
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: O! what a war of looks was then between them;
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing; 356
His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them;
Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing:
And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.
Full gently now she takes him by the hand, 361
A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;
So white a friend engirts so white a foe: 364
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
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