| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: conception of a god current in Clapham, but was not, according to the
same reckoning, even a respectable man. The academic view starts with
a Shakespear who was not scurrilous; therefore the verses about "lousy
Lucy" cannot have been written by him, and the cognate passages in the
plays are either strokes of character-drawing or gags interpolated by
the actors. This ideal Shakespear was too well behaved to get drunk;
therefore the tradition that his death was hastened by a drinking bout
with Jonson and Drayton must be rejected, and the remorse of Cassio
treated as a thing observed, not experienced: nay, the disgust of
Hamlet at the drinking customs of Denmark is taken to establish
Shakespear as the superior of Alexander in self-control, and the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: resting upon it. He looked helplessly at the little, shrunken
figure in the opposite chair. Polly had made no sound, but her
head had slipped lower and lower and she now sat very quietly
with her face in her hands. She had been taught by Toby and Jim
never to whimper.
"What a plucky lot they are," thought Douglas, as he considered
these three lonely souls, each accepting whatever fate brought
with no rebellion or even surprise. It was a strange world of
stoics in which these children of the amusement arena fought and
lost. They came and went like phantoms, with as little
consciousness of their own best interests as of the great, moving
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing
that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than
to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of
his ancestors. The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their
posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to
leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor
reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable. And if you follow
our precepts you will be received by us as friends, when the hour of
destiny brings you hither; but if you neglect our words and are disgraced
in your lives, no one will welcome or receive you. This is the message
which is to be delivered to our children.
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