| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: and prevented him. In a fit of madness and despair he turned the knife
against himself, and ended his life amid the most horrible sufferings.
"Besides these two instances which occurred before the eyes of all the
world, stories circulated of many more among the lower classes, nearly
all of which had tragic endings. Here an honest sober man became a
drunkard; there a shopkeeper's clerk robbed his master; again, a
driver who had conducted himself properly for a number of years cut
his passenger's throat for a groschen. It was impossible that such
occurrences, related, not without embellishments, should not inspire a
sort of involuntary horror amongst the sedate inhabitants of Kolomna.
No one entertained any doubt as to the presence of an evil power in
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: division of substances, then the chaos of Anaxagoras would come again. And
in like manner, my dear Cebes, if all things which partook of life were to
die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not
come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive--what
other result could there be? For if the living spring from any other
things, and they too die, must not all things at last be swallowed up in
death? (But compare Republic.)
There is no escape, Socrates, said Cebes; and to me your argument seems to
be absolutely true.
Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have not
been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that there
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a
pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint
of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay
out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor;
an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep
themselves always under.
Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left
the pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings,
was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition,
as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and forbad my paying it.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
