ONE:
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ONE:The glowing enthusiasm of Plato is, however, not entirely derived from the poetic traditions of his native city; or perhaps we should rather say that he and the great writers who preceded him drew from a common fount of inspiration. Mr. Emerson, in one of the most penetrating criticisms ever written on our philosopher,129 has pointed out the existence of two distinct elements in the Platonic Dialogues¡ªone dispersive, practical, prosaic; the other mystical, absorbing, centripetal. The American scholar is, however, as we think, quite mistaken when he attributes the second of these tendencies to Asiatic influence. It is extremely doubtful whether Plato ever travelled farther east than Egypt; it is probable that his stay in that country was not of long duration; and it is certain that he did not acquire a single metaphysical idea from its inhabitants. He liked their rigid conservatism; he liked their institution of a dominant priesthood; he liked their system of popular education, and the place which it gave to mathematics made him look with shame on the ¡®swinish ignorance¡¯ of his own countrymen in that respect;130 but on the whole he classes them among the races exclusively devoted to money-making, and in aptitude for philosophy he places them far below the Greeks. Very different were the impressions brought home from his visits to Sicily and204 Southern Italy. There he became acquainted with modes of thought in which the search after hidden resemblances and analogies was a predominant passion; there the existence of a central unity underlying all phenomena was maintained, as against sense and common opinion, with the intensity of a religious creed; there alone speculation was clothed in poetic language; there first had an attempt been made to carry thought into life by associating it with a reform of manners and beliefs. There, too, the arts of dance and song had assumed a more orderly and solemn aspect; the chorus received its final constitution from a Sicilian master; and the loftiest strains of Greek lyric poetry were composed for recitation in the streets of Sicilian cities or at the courts of Sicilian kings. Then, with the rise of rhetoric, Greek prose was elaborated by Sicilian teachers into a sort of rhythmical composition, combining rich imagery with studied harmonies and contrasts of sense and sound. And as the hold of Asiatic civilisation on eastern Hellas grew weaker, the attention of her foremost spirits was more and more attracted to this new region of wonder and romance. The stream of colonisation set thither in a steady flow; the scenes of mythical adventure were rediscovered in Western waters; and it was imagined that, by grasping the resources of Sicily, an empire extending over the whole Mediterranean might be won. Perhaps, without being too fanciful, we may trace a likeness between the daring schemes of Alcibiades and the more remote but not more visionary kingdom suggested by an analogous inspiration to the idealising soul of Plato. Each had learned to practise, although for far different purposes, the royal art of Socrates¡ªthe mastery over men¡¯s minds acquired by a close study of their interests, passions, and beliefs. But the ambition of the one defeated his own aim, to the destruction of his country and of himself; while the other drew into Athenian thought whatever of Western force and fervour was needed for the accomplishment of its205 imperial task. We may say of Plato what he has said of his own Theaet¨ºtus, that ¡®he moves surely and smoothly and successfully in the path of knowledge and inquiry; always making progress like the noiseless flow of a river of oil¡¯;131 but everywhere beside or beneath that placid lubricating flow we may trace the action of another current, where still sparkles, fresh and clear as at first, the fiery Sicilian wine.I had not the faintest idea who they were, but then they introduced themselves as van Wersch and Dasoul, both living at the time at Hasselt. The first had been at Maastricht a couple of days ago and had seen me there. He told me that that morning he had been "hooked" and his companion only the evening before. He had come to Bilsen on a bicycle, and got such a blow on his back from181 the butt of a German rifle that the butt was cracked in two although his back was not injured.
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FORE:Their problem was to get above it, to ride it down, force it to take the sea or to come down in a crackup on shore if that must be¡ªbefore it could lose itself in that dull, gloomy, lowering bank of fog ahead.
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FORE:But it is equally certain that at Li¨¨ge as well as at Namur and Antwerp the Austrian thirty-point-five mortars were used, siege-guns chiefly, and these were taken by the German soldiers for forty-two's. These Austrian mortars were equally misnamed in German, French, and even Netherland illustrated papers.
