| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: in the doctrine of Heracleitus? Is the giving of the names of streams to
both of them purely accidental? Compare the line in which Homer, and, as I
believe, Hesiod also, tells of
'Ocean, the origin of Gods, and mother Tethys (Il.--the line is not found
in the extant works of Hesiod.).'
And again, Orpheus says, that
'The fair river of Ocean was the first to marry, and he espoused his sister
Tethys, who was his mother's daughter.'
You see that this is a remarkable coincidence, and all in the direction of
Heracleitus.
HERMOGENES: I think that there is something in what you say, Socrates; but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: from his brow; there was something awful in hearing the son
read aloud in trembling pallor these details of his father's
death, which had hitherto been a mystery. Valentine clasped
her hands as if in prayer. Noirtier looked at Villefort with
an almost sublime expression of contempt and pride. Franz
continued: --
"`It was, as we said, the fifth of February. For three days
the mercury had been five or six degrees below freezing and
the steps were covered with ice. The general was stout and
tall, the president offered him the side of the railing to
assist him in getting down. The two witnesses followed. It
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: stare upon the heavens. She drew me after her along the aisles,
leaving a trace of her presence in the ashes that she shook from her
dress. Her bones rattled as she walked, like the bones of a skeleton;
and as we went I heard behind me the tinkling of a little bell, a
thin, sharp sound that rang through my head like the notes of a
harmonica.
"Suffer!" she cried, "suffer! So it must be!"
We came out of the church; we went through the dirtiest streets of the
town, till we came at last to a dingy dwelling, and she bade me enter
in. She dragged me with her, calling to me in a harsh, tuneless voice
like a cracked bell:
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