| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor any one else who ever was, had as
good ideas about Homer as I have, or as many.
SOCRATES: I am glad to hear you say so, Ion; I see that you will not
refuse to acquaint me with them.
ION: Certainly, Socrates; and you really ought to hear how exquisitely I
render Homer. I think that the Homeridae should give me a golden crown.
SOCRATES: I shall take an opportunity of hearing your embellishments of
him at some other time. But just now I should like to ask you a question:
Does your art extend to Hesiod and Archilochus, or to Homer only?
ION: To Homer only; he is in himself quite enough.
SOCRATES: Are there any things about which Homer and Hesiod agree?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: may be that this crackbrained rebellion of which the torch is already
alight will, if it does no other good in England, at least make a widow
of you. When that has come to pass, when I have thus repaired the wrong
I did you, I hope you'll bear me as kindly as may be in your thought.
Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might have loved me. I sought to force
it." He smiled ever so wanly. "Perhaps that was my mistake. It is an
ill thing to eat one's hay while it is grass." He raised to his lips
the little gloved hand that still rested on his wrist. "God keep you,
Ruth!" he murmured.
She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he stepped out quietly
from behind the coats hung in the recessed part.
"I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he whispered.
I, too, spoke under my breath.
"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting permission."
He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though
he had been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently,
kept under arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks.
But there was nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression.
He was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning
over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads
The Secret Sharer |
