| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: whatever may have been one's earthly share of happiness,
"'tis something better not to be."
Strange it seems at first that those who have looked so long to the
rising sun for inspiration should be they who live only in a sort of
lethargy of life, while those who for so many centuries have turned
their faces steadily to the fading glory of the sunset should be the
ones who have embodied the spirit of progress of the world. Perhaps
the light, by its very rising, checks the desire to pursue; in its
setting it lures one on to follow.
Though this religion of impersonality is not their child, it is
their choice. They embraced it with the rest that India taught
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: will sit you." For the distinction between {paradeigmaton} =
examples and {upodeigmata} = suggestions see "Horsem." ii. 2.
Or again,[7] let us suppose that both should have occasion to
pronounce a panegyric. Whose compliments will carry farther, in the
way of delectation, think you? Or on occasion of a solemn sacrifice,
suppose they do a friend the honour of an invitation.[8] In either
case it is an honour, but which will be regarded with the greater
gratitude, the monarch's or the lesser man's?
[7] "Come now."
[8] Cf. "Mem." II. iii. 11 as to "sacrifices as a means of social
enjoyment." Dr. Holden cf. Aristot. "Nic. Eth." VIII. ix. 160,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Of an inestimable value, and his daughter with him,
A fire from heavn came and shrivell'd up
Their bodies, even to loathing; for they so stunk,
That all those eyes adored them ere their fall
Scorn now their hand should give them burial.
ESCANES.
'Twas very strange
HELICANUS.
And yet but justice; for though
This king were great; his greatness was no guard.
To bar heaven's shaft, but sin had his reward.
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