| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: of in that district. I was looked upon with contempt, like a man
who should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful
interest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. All were
ready to help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported
me at the critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but
was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a
breakfast.
It was already hard upon October before I was ready to set forth,
and at the high altitudes over which my road lay there was no
Indian summer to be looked for. I was determined, if not to camp
out, at least to have the means of camping out in my possession;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: in resisting the affections of the body, as Homer describes Odysseus
'rebuking his heart.' Could he have written this under the idea that the
soul is a harmony of the body? Nay rather, are we not contradicting Homer
and ourselves in affirming anything of the sort?
The goddess Harmonia, as Socrates playfully terms the argument of Simmias,
has been happily disposed of; and now an answer has to be given to the
Theban Cadmus. Socrates recapitulates the argument of Cebes, which, as he
remarks, involves the whole question of natural growth or causation; about
this he proposes to narrate his own mental experience. When he was young
he had puzzled himself with physics: he had enquired into the growth and
decay of animals, and the origin of thought, until at last he began to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
