| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: which was not then in fashion, octagonal decanters, knives with agate
handles, and lacquered trays beneath the wine-bottles, were the chief
features of the table, but flowers adorned the porcelain vases and
overhung the gilding of their fluted edges. I delighted in these
quaint old things. I thought the Reveillon paper with its flowery
garlands beautiful. The sweet content that filled my sails hindered me
from perceiving the obstacles which a life so uniform, so unvarying in
solitude of the country placed between her and me. I was near her,
sitting at her right hand, serving her with wine. Yes, unhoped-for
joy! I touched her dress, I ate her bread. At the end of three hours
my life had mingled with her life! That terrible kiss had bound us to
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me
It seems to bring diviner memories
Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,
Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where
On the clear river's marge Narcissus lies,
The tangle of the forest in his hair,
The silence of the woodland in his eyes,
Wooing that drifting imagery which is
No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis
Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both,
Fed by two fires and unsatisfied
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: is equally accidental and irrational, and is nevertheless accepted by him
as the guiding principle of his life. Socrates is nowhere represented to
us as a freethinker or sceptic. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity
when he speculates on the possibility of seeing and knowing the heroes of
the Trojan war in another world. On the other hand, his hope of
immortality is uncertain;--he also conceives of death as a long sleep (in
this respect differing from the Phaedo), and at last falls back on
resignation to the divine will, and the certainty that no evil can happen
to the good man either in life or death. His absolute truthfulness seems
to hinder him from asserting positively more than this; and he makes no
attempt to veil his ignorance in mythology and figures of speech. The
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