| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: "Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters," said Paz, with a
piqued air. "She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment
on the third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two
lives, her circus life and the life of a pretty woman."
"Does she love you?"
"She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I'm a Pole. She saw
an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,--for
all France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is
impossible to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski
and his followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am
very unhappy, madame."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: which may be learnt from Homer. Does he not say that Hector's son had two
names--
'Hector called him Scamandrius, but the others Astyanax'?
Now, if the men called him Astyanax, is it not probable that the other name
was conferred by the women? And which are more likely to be right--the
wiser or the less wise, the men or the women? Homer evidently agreed with
the men: and of the name given by them he offers an explanation;--the boy
was called Astyanax ('king of the city'), because his father saved the
city. The names Astyanax and Hector, moreover, are really the same,--the
one means a king, and the other is 'a holder or possessor.' For as the
lion's whelp may be called a lion, or the horse's foal a foal, so the son
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Where thee he joys beholding; ay, for him
Let honey flow, the thorn-bush spices bear."
MENALCAS
"Who hates not Bavius, let him also love
Thy songs, O Maevius, ay, and therewithal
Yoke foxes to his car, and he-goats milk."
DAMOETAS
"You, picking flowers and strawberries that grow
So near the ground, fly hence, boys, get you gone!
There's a cold adder lurking in the grass."
MENALCAS
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