| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: See Cobet, "Pros. Xen." s.n.; cf. Plat. "Symp." 173; "Phaed." 54
A, 117 D; Aelian, "V. H." i. 16; Heges. "Delph." ap. Athen. xi.
507.
[53] Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 35, ascribes the remark to Xanthippe, and so
Val. Max. 7. 2, Ext. 1.
Whereupon Socrates, it is said, gently stroked the young man's head:
"Would you have been better pleased, my dear one, to see me put to
death for some just reason rather than unjustly?" and as he spoke he
smiled tenderly.[54]
[54] See Plat. "Phaed." 89 B, where a similar action is attributed to
Socrates in the case of Phaedo (his beloved disciple). "He stroked
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: resume my accustomed place on the raft, when my uncle laid his hand
upon my shoulder.
"We shall not sail until to-morrow," he said.
I made a movement intended to express resignation.
"I must neglect nothing," he said; "and since my fate has driven me
on this part of the coast, I will not leave it until I have examined
it."
To understand what followed, it must be borne in mind that, through
circumstances hereafter to be explained, we were not really where the
Professor supposed we were. In fact we were not upon the north shore
of the sea.
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: hurried his pleading like the speech of a frightened child. 'It is
not love,' he went on; 'I do not ask for love; my love is enough . .
.'
'Otto!' she said, as if in pain.
He looked up into her face. It was wrung with the very ecstasy of
tenderness and anguish; on her features, and most of all in her
changed eyes, there shone the very light of love.
'Seraphina?' he cried aloud, and with a sudden, tuneless voice,
'Seraphina?'
'Look round you at this glade,' she cried, 'and where the leaves are
coming on young trees, and the flowers begin to blossom. This is
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