| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: until he has done penance. His conscious has been awakened, and like
Stesichorus when he had reviled the lovely Helen he will sing a palinode
for having blasphemed the majesty of love. His palinode takes the form of
a myth.
Socrates begins his tale with a glorification of madness, which he divides
into four kinds: first, there is the art of divination or prophecy--this,
in a vein similar to that pervading the Cratylus and Io, he connects with
madness by an etymological explanation (mantike, manike--compare
oionoistike, oionistike, ''tis all one reckoning, save the phrase is a
little variations'); secondly, there is the art of purification by
mysteries; thirdly, poetry or the inspiration of the Muses (compare Ion),
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: possess beauty. A Newport woman--the new kind--has even taken her to
Worth! And yet, after all, she has remained for John. We heard a great
deal of her men, too. She took care of that, of course. John Mayrant
actually followed her to Newport.
"But," I couldn't help crying out, "I thought he was so poor!"
"The phosphates," my hostess explained. "They had been discovered on his
land. And none of her New York men had come forward. So John rushed back
happy." At this point a very singular look came over the face of my
hostess, and she continued: "There have been many false reports (and
false hopes in consequence) based upon the phosphate discoveries. It was
I who had to break it to him--what further investigation had revealed.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: into a stately apartment, where they found the baron alone,
flourishing an enormous carving-knife over a brother baron--of beef--
with as much vehemence of action as if he were cutting down an enemy.
The baron was a gentleman of a fierce and choleric temperament:
he was lineally descended from the redoubtable Fierabras
of Normandy, who came over to England with the Conqueror,
and who, in the battle of Hastings, killed with his own
hand four-and-twenty Saxon cavaliers all on a row.
The very excess of the baron's internal rage on the preceding day
had smothered its external manifestation: he was so equally angry
with both parties, that he knew not on which to vent his wrath.
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