| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And do we by shoemaking take care of our feet, or by some other
art which improves the feet?
ALCIBIADES: By some other art.
SOCRATES: And the same art improves the feet which improves the rest of
the body?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Which is gymnastic?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then by gymnastic we take care of our feet, and by shoemaking of
that which belongs to our feet?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: and "Decapitation of John the Baptist," which may still be seen in the
Rue Saint-Denis.
However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire the
cat, which a minute's attention sufficed to stamp on his memory. The
young man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after the
manner of an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all the
more remarkable in the midst of the Paris mud, because he wore white
silk stockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He had
just come, no doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hour
he had in his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black hair, now out
of curl, and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to
think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of
the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I
pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory
conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations
of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus
affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected,
that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
The Fall of the House of Usher |
