| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: such thing as mercy at all--and until he chose to utter
the restraining word the rout of the vanquished would go
on with multiplying terrors and ruin. He could crush
and torture and despoil his enemies until he was tired.
The responsibility of having to decide when he would stop
grinding their faces might come to weigh upon him later on,
but he would not give it room in his mind to-night.
A picture of these faces of his victims shaped itself
out of the flames in the grate. They were moulded
in a family likeness, these phantom visages: they were
all Jewish, all malignant, all distorted with fright.
The Market-Place |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: majority?
LYSIMACHUS: Why, yes, Socrates; what else am I to do?
SOCRATES: And would you do so too, Melesias? If you were deliberating
about the gymnastic training of your son, would you follow the advice of
the majority of us, or the opinion of the one who had been trained and
exercised under a skilful master?
MELESIAS: The latter, Socrates; as would surely be reasonable.
SOCRATES: His one vote would be worth more than the vote of all us four?
MELESIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And for this reason, as I imagine,--because a good decision is
based on knowledge and not on numbers?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: wedlock with inferiors, which is apt to be regarded as degrading and
disserviceable.
[33] Cf. "Hunting," i. 9. Holden cf. Eur. "Rhes." 168; "Androm." 1255.
[34] Cf. Dem. "in Lept." S. 69, p. 499. See Plat. "Rep." 553 C.
Now for the application: a despotic monarch, unless he weds some
foreign bride, is forced to choose a wife from those beneath him, so
that the height of satisfaction is denied him.[35]
[35] Al. "supreme content, the quintessential bliss, is quite unknown
to him."
The tender service of the proudest-souled of women, wifely rendered,
how superlatively charming![36] and by contrast, how little welcome is
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