| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: First, invoking the Muses and assuming ironically the person of the non-
lover (who is a lover all the same), he will enquire into the nature and
power of love. For this is a necessary preliminary to the other question--
How is the non-lover to be distinguished from the lover? In all of us
there are two principles--a better and a worse--reason and desire, which
are generally at war with one another; and the victory of the rational is
called temperance, and the victory of the irrational intemperance or
excess. The latter takes many forms and has many bad names--gluttony,
drunkenness, and the like. But of all the irrational desires or excesses
the greatest is that which is led away by desires of a kindred nature to
the enjoyment of personal beauty. And this is the master power of love.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: and down my back."
"I ain't got a hunch, but I got a tolerable likeable hand,"
Campbell announced, as he slid in his slip; "but it's not a
raising hand."
"Mine is," Daylight paused and wrote. "I see that thousand and
raise her the same old thousand."
The Virgin, standing behind him, then did what a man's best
friend was not privileged to do. Reaching over Daylight's
shoulder, she picked up his hand and read it, at the same time
shielding the faces of the five cards close to his chest. What
she saw were three queens and a pair of eights, but nobody
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: fellow, with fair moustaches, stood uttering words of foul and
coarse abuse, and rubbing with his left the palm of his right
hand, which he had hurt in hitting a prisoner on the face. In
front of him a thin, tall convict, with half his head shaved and
dressed in a cloak too short for him and trousers much too short,
stood wiping his bleeding face with one hand, and holding a
little shrieking girl wrapped in a shawl with the other.
"I'll give it you" (foul abuse); "I'll teach you to reason" (more
abuse); "you're to give her to the women!" shouted the officer.
"Now, then, on with them."
The convict, who was exiled by the Commune, had been carrying his
Resurrection |
