| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: ashamed if I were present and did not do what I could to prevent your
difference. And I should do the same if you were quarrelling about any
other art and were likely, unless you agreed on the point in dispute, to
part as enemies instead of as friends. But now, when we are contending
about a thing of which the usefulness continues during the whole of life,
and it makes an enormous difference whether we are to regard it as
beneficial or not,--a thing, too, which is esteemed of the highest
importance by the Hellenes:--(for parents, as soon as their children are,
as they think, come to years of discretion, urge them to consider how
wealth may be acquired, since by riches the value of a man is judged):--
When, I say, we are thus in earnest, and you, who agree in other respects,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily,
this is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in
those who have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost
them by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things
may perhaps shelter the story from criticism.
Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting
from M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live
there, for some inscrutable woman's reason; any woman is at liberty to
assign the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in
such complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and
her own woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: boulevard in the direction of the Madeleine.
'Where shall we go to?' I said.
'Oh, anywhere you like!' he answered - 'to the restaurant in the
Bois; we will dine there, and you shall tell me all about
yourself.'
'I want to hear about you first,' I said. 'Tell me your mystery.'
He took from his pocket a little silver-clasped morocco case, and
handed it to me. I opened it. Inside there was the photograph of
a woman. She was tall and slight, and strangely picturesque with
her large vague eyes and loosened hair. She looked like a
CLAIRVOYANTE, and was wrapped in rich furs.
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