| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: dialectic. I am far from saying that all Athens listened to
Sokrates or understood him: had it been so, the caricature of
Aristophanes would have been pointless, and the sublime yet
mournful trilogy of dialogues which pourtray the closing scenes
of the greatest life of antiquity would never have been written.
But the mere fact that such a man lived and taught in the way
that he did goes far in proof of the deep culture of the Athenian
public. Further confirmation is to be found in the fact that such
tragedies as the Antigone, the Oidipous, and the Prometheus were
written to suit the popular taste of the time; not to be read by
literary people, or to be performed before select audiences such
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: asking whether 'it warn't a crying scandal that she should have
followers at her time of life? And then, to get them jocks out o'
t' maister's cellar! He fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it.'
She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing
a reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming
earnestness. And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of
Heathcliff's history. He had a 'queer' end, as she expressed it.
I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your
leaving us, she said; and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake.
My first interview with her grieved and shocked me: she had
altered so much since our separation. Mr. Heathcliff did not
Wuthering Heights |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: It was after these events that Chabrias[7] commenced his voyage to
Cyprus, bringing relief to Evagoras. His force consisted at first of
eight hundred light troops and ten triremes, but was further increased
by other vessels from Athens and a body of heavy infantry. Thus
reinforced, the admiral chose a night and landed in Aegina; and
secreted himself in ambuscade with his light troops in hollow ground
some way beyond the temple of Heracles. At break of day, as
prearranged, the Athenian hoplites made their appearance under command
of Demaenetus, and began mounting up between two and three miles[8]
beyond the Kerakleion at Tripurgia, as it is called. The news soon
reached Gorgopas, who sallied out to the rescue with the Aeginetans
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