| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: admission, and confess that he is inferior to Socrates in argumentative
skill, that is enough for Socrates; but if he claims a superiority in
argument as well, let him ask and answer--not, when a question is asked,
slipping away from the point, and instead of answering, making a speech at
such length that most of his hearers forget the question at issue (not that
Socrates is likely to forget--I will be bound for that, although he may
pretend in fun that he has a bad memory). And Socrates appears to me to be
more in the right than Protagoras; that is my view, and every man ought to
say what he thinks.
When Alcibiades had done speaking, some one--Critias, I believe--went on to
say: O Prodicus and Hippias, Callias appears to me to be a partisan of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: I trust to being in charity with her soon. But I too have been
thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself,
whether there may not have been one person more my enemy
even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned
to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds,
and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you,
would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short,
have renewed the engagement then?"
"Would I!" was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.
"Good God!" he cried, "you would! It is not that I did not think of it,
or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success;
Persuasion |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: morning wake us to no new joys, if in the evening we have no pleasures to
hope for, is it worth the trouble of dressing and undressing? Does the sun
shine on me to-day, that I may reflect on what happened yesterday? That I
may endeavour to foresee and control, what can neither be foreseen nor
controlled,--the destiny of the morrow? Spare me these reflections, we will
leave them to scholars and courtiers. Let them ponder and contrive, creep
hither and thither, and surreptitiously achieve their ends.--If you can make
use of these suggestions, without swelling your letter into a volume, it is
well. Everything appears of exaggerated importance to the good old man.
'Tis thus the friend, who has long held our hand, grasps it more warmly
ere he quits his hold.
Egmont |
