| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: Within an inch o'th Pyramid, that the cry
Was generall 'a Palamon': But, anon,
Th'Assistants made a brave redemption, and
The two bold Tytlers, at this instant are
Hand to hand at it.
EMILIA.
Were they metamorphisd
Both into one! oh why? there were no woman
Worth so composd a Man: their single share,
Their noblenes peculier to them, gives
The prejudice of disparity, values shortnes, [Cornets. Cry within,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: by the description of Phaedo, who has been the eye-witness of the scene,
and by the sympathy of his Phliasian auditors who are beginning to think
'that they too can never trust an argument again.' And the intense
interest of the company is communicated not only to the first auditors, but
to us who in a distant country read the narrative of their emotions after
more than two thousand years have passed away.
The two principal interlocutors are Simmias and Cebes, the disciples of
Philolaus the Pythagorean philosopher of Thebes. Simmias is described in
the Phaedrus as fonder of an argument than any man living; and Cebes,
although finally persuaded by Socrates, is said to be the most incredulous
of human beings. It is Cebes who at the commencement of the Dialogue asks
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: as he could afford, and should give Charles Hayter the promise of it.
The advantage of his having to come only to Uppercross, instead of going
six miles another way; of his having, in every respect, a better curacy;
of his belonging to their dear Dr Shirley, and of dear, good Dr Shirley's
being relieved from the duty which he could no longer get through
without most injurious fatigue, had been a great deal, even to Louisa,
but had been almost everything to Henrietta. When he came back, alas!
the zeal of the business was gone by. Louisa could not listen at all
to his account of a conversation which he had just held with Dr Shirley:
she was at a window, looking out for Captain Wentworth; and even Henrietta
had at best only a divided attention to give, and seemed to have forgotten
Persuasion |
