| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: "Du Halga, I always lose," said the gentleman.
"You discard badly," replied the Baronne de Rouville.
"For three months now I have never won a single game," said he.
"Have you the aces?" asked the old lady.
"Yes, one more to mark," said he.
"Shall I come and advise you?" said Adelaide.
"No, no. Stay where I can see you. By Gad, it would be losing too
much not to have you to look at!"
At last the game was over. The gentleman pulled out his purse,
and, throwing two louis d'or on the table, not without temper--
"Forty francs," he exclaimed, "the exact sum.--Deuce take it! It
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: masters of choruses, who are suspended, as if from the stone, at the side
of the rings which hang down from the Muse. And every poet has some Muse
from whom he is suspended, and by whom he is said to be possessed, which is
nearly the same thing; for he is taken hold of. And from these first
rings, which are the poets, depend others, some deriving their inspiration
from Orpheus, others from Musaeus; but the greater number are possessed and
held by Homer. Of whom, Ion, you are one, and are possessed by Homer; and
when any one repeats the words of another poet you go to sleep, and know
not what to say; but when any one recites a strain of Homer you wake up in
a moment, and your soul leaps within you, and you have plenty to say; for
not by art or knowledge about Homer do you say what you say, but by divine
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures
images of an opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by
refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use
of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them
to be right and smooth and free, and renders the portion of the soul which
resides about the liver happy and joyful, enabling it to pass the night in
peace, and to practise divination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in
mind and reason. For the authors of our being, remembering the command of
their father when he bade them create the human race as good as they could,
that they might correct our inferior parts and make them to attain a
measure of truth, placed in the liver the seat of divination. And herein
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