| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation,
undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to
the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the
proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more
than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the
fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the
hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been subjected by the laws of
his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a
thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley (Prose Works) is of
opinion that Socrates 'did well to die,' but not for the 'sophistical'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and contempt,
with that peculiar and expressive twist which superior people assume
to show they are not taken in. Then, when I was expatiating on the
courage of M. Martin, he smiled, shook his head knowingly, and said,
'Well known.'
" 'How "well known"?' I said. 'If you would only explain me the
mystery, I should be vastly obliged.'
"After a few minutes, during which we made acquaintance, we went to
dine at the first restauranteur's whose shop caught our eye. At
dessert a bottle of champagne completely refreshed and brightened up
the memories of this odd old soldier. He told me his story, and I saw
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: be. Her eyes were, it seemed, opened; she felt all the difficulty
of maintaining herself without hypocrisy and self-conceit on the
pinnacle to which she had wished to mount. Moreover, she became
aware of all the dreariness of the world of sorrow, of sick and
dying people, in which she had been living. The efforts she~had
made to like it seemed to her intolerable, and she felt a longing
to get back quickly into the fresh air, to Russia, to Ergushovo,
where, as she knew from letters, her sister Dolly had already
gone with her children.
But her affection for Varenka did not wane. As she said good-bye,
Kitty begged her to come to them in Russia.
Anna Karenina |
