| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: (Symp.), Euclid and Terpsion from Megara (compare Theaet.), Ctesippus,
Antisthenes, Menexenus, and some other less-known members of the Socratic
circle, all of whom are silent auditors. Aristippus, Cleombrotus, and
Plato are noted as absent. Almost as soon as the friends of Socrates enter
the prison Xanthippe and her children are sent home in the care of one of
Crito's servants. Socrates himself has just been released from chains, and
is led by this circumstance to make the natural remark that 'pleasure
follows pain.' (Observe that Plato is preparing the way for his doctrine
of the alternation of opposites.) 'Aesop would have represented them in a
fable as a two-headed creature of the gods.' The mention of Aesop reminds
Cebes of a question which had been asked by Evenus the poet (compare
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: or Nurse, as the case requires. She is known quite simply and
royally as Madame. If she ever had a name in the world, she has
long since forgotten it, which is perhaps as well. Then we have
this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose and the wide mouth, who
is of course our soubrette Columbine, and lastly, my daughter
Climene, an amoureuse of talents not to be matched outside the
Comedie Francaise, of which she has the bad taste to aspire to
become a member."
The lovely Climene - and lovely indeed she was - tossed her
nut-brown curls and laughed as she looked across at Andre-Louis.
Her eyes, he had perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: leading to the discovery of the lost document, and the consequent
success of the Eastern claim. For a long time Matthew Maule is
said to have turned a cold ear to these propositions. At last,
however, with a strange kind of laugh, he inquired whether Mr.
Pyncheon would make over to him the old wizard's
homestead-ground, together with the House of the Seven Gables,
now standing on it, in requital of the documentary evidence so
urgently required.
The wild, chimney-corner legend (which, without copying all its
extravagances, my narrative essentially follows) here gives an
account of some very strange behavior on the part of Colonel
House of Seven Gables |
