| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel,
when we do quarrel? (Compare Alcib.)
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we
quarrel is such as you describe.
SOCRATES: And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur,
are of a like nature?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly they are.
SOCRATES: They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and
evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been
no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences--would there
now?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: are temporal, and born only to die; mere shadows of some unseen
realities, from whom their laws and life are derived; while the eternal
things which subsist without growth, decay, or change, the only real,
only truly existing things, in short, are certain things which are not
seen; inappreciable by sense, or understanding, or imagination,
perceived only by the conscience and the reason. And that, again, the
problem of philosophy, the highest good for man, that for the sake of
which death were a gain, without which life is worthless, a drudgery, a
degradation, a failure, and a ruin, is to discover what those unseen
eternal things are, to know them, possess them, be in harmony with them,
and thereby alone to rise to any real and solid power, or safety, or
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: said he, "no love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly
unworthy, so that his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail
in time to arouse response." She smiled a little pitiful smile of
unbelief. "Were I a boy," he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now
in a voice that was usually so calm and level, "offering you
protestations of a callow worship, you might have cause to doubt me.
But I am a man, Ruth - a tried, and haply a sinful man, alas! - a
man who needs you, and who will have you at all costs."
"At all costs?" she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. "And you call
this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right," she continued
with an irony that stung him, "for love it is - love of yourself."
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