| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: [3] Lit. "those good things which the gods afford in their seasons."
[4] Or, "arise," or "are fashioned."
Indeed it would be scarcely irrational to maintain that the city of
Athens lies at the navel, not of Hellas merely, but of the habitable
world. So true is it, that the farther we remove from Athens the
greater the extreme of heat or cold to be encountered; or to use
another illustration, the traveller who desires to traverse the
confines of Hellas from end to end will find that, whether he voyages
by sea or by land, he is describing a circle, the centre of which is
Athens.[5]
[5] See "Geog. of Brit. Isles." J. R. and S. A. Green, ch. i. p. 7:
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: above the level of ordinary life, but to speak of them in a deeper and
tenderer way than they are ordinarily felt, so as to awaken the feeling of
them in others. The old he makes young again; the familiar principle he
invests with a new dignity; he finds a noble expression for the common-
places of morality and politics. He uses the things of sense so as to
indicate what is beyond; he raises us through earth to heaven. He
expresses what the better part of us would fain say, and the half-conscious
feeling is strengthened by the expression. He is his own critic, for the
spirit of poetry and of criticism are not divided in him. His mission is
not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their own
nature, and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: specimen of Perfidious Albion whom I had just been studying gave me
the stronger zest for my fellow-countrymen. I could have embraced
them; I could have wept on their necks. And all the time I was
going to a disappointment.
It was in a spacious and low room, with an outlook on the court,
that I found them bestowed. In the good days of that house the
apartment had probably served as a library, for there were traces
of shelves along the wainscot. Four or five mattresses lay on the
floor in a corner, with a frowsy heap of bedding; near by was a
basin and a cube of soap; a rude kitchen-table and some deal chairs
stood together at the far end; and the room was illuminated by no
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