| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: My foot to yours was set,
Your loosened ringlet burned my cheek
Whenever they two met.
O little, little we hearkened, dear,
And little, little cared,
Although the parson sermonised,
The congregation stared.
LOVE'S VICISSITUDES
AS Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: 'Tis most excellent, said the monk. Then do me the favour, I
replied, to accept of the box and all, and when you take a pinch
out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace offering of a man
who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart.
The poor monk blush'd as red as scarlet. MON DIEU! said he,
pressing his hands together - you never used me unkindly. - I
should think, said the lady, he is not likely. I blush'd in my
turn; but from what movements, I leave to the few who feel, to
analyze. - Excuse me, Madame, replied I, - I treated him most
unkindly; and from no provocations. - 'Tis impossible, said the
lady. - My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: thoughts and observations. I agree with him in rejecting as futile the
attempt of Schleiermacher and others to arrange the Dialogues of Plato into
a harmonious whole. Any such arrangement appears to me not only to be
unsupported by evidence, but to involve an anachronism in the history of
philosophy. There is a common spirit in the writings of Plato, but not a
unity of design in the whole, nor perhaps a perfect unity in any single
Dialogue. The hypothesis of a general plan which is worked out in the
successive Dialogues is an after-thought of the critics who have attributed
a system to writings belonging to an age when system had not as yet taken
possession of philosophy.
If Mr. Grote should do me the honour to read any portion of this work he
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