| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: chamber, with shrunken face and restless eyes, his lean
fingers picking incessantly at the silken coverlet.
"My son!" he murmured; "Hermas, my son! It is good that
you have come back to me. I have missed you. I was wrong to
send you away. You shall never leave me again. You are my
son, my heir. I have changed everything. Hermas, my son, come
nearer--close beside me. Take my hand, my son!"
The young man obeyed, and, kneeling by the couch, gathered
his father's cold, twitching fingers in his firm, warm grasp.
"Hermas, life is passing--long, rich, prosperous; the last
sands, I cannot stay them. My religion, a good policy--Julian
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: should be king hereafter!
Out in the street, he looked up at d'Arthez's windows, and saw a faint
light shining in them, and his heart sank. A dim foreboding told him
that he had bidden his friends good-bye for the last time.
As he turned out of the Place de la Sorbonne into the Rue de Cluny, he
saw a carriage at the door of his lodging. Coralie had driven all the
way from the Boulevard du Temple for the sake of a moment with her
lover and a "good-night." Lucien found her sobbing in his garret. She
would be as wretchedly poor as her poet, she wept, as she arranged his
shirts and gloves and handkerchiefs in the crazy chest of drawers. Her
distress was so real and so great, that Lucien, but even now chidden
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: makes the attempt.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak more clearly.
STRANGER: Do not expect clearness from me. For I, who maintain that not-
being has no part either in the one or many, just now spoke and am still
speaking of not-being as one; for I say 'not-being.' Do you understand?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And a little while ago I said that not-being is unutterable,
unspeakable, indescribable: do you follow?
THEAETETUS: I do after a fashion.
STRANGER: When I introduced the word 'is,' did I not contradict what I
said before?
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