| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: enjoy oneself more, no good will ever come of it. To set up as
one's main object, ousting everything else, marriage, union with
the being you love, is a great mistake. And an obvious one, if you
think about it. Object, marriage. Well, you marry; and what then?
If you had no other object in life before your marriage, it will be
twice as hard to find one.
As a rule, people who are getting married completely forget
this.
So many joyful events await them in the future, in wedlock and
the arrival of children, that those events seem to constitute life
itself. But this is indeed a dangerous illusion.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of
their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. Even as I exhort you this
day, and in all future time, whenever I meet with any of you, shall
continue to remind and exhort you, O ye sons of heroes, that you strive to
be the bravest of men. And I think that I ought now to repeat what your
fathers desired to have said to you who are their survivors, when they went
out to battle, in case anything happened to them. I will tell you what I
heard them say, and what, if they had only speech, they would fain be
saying, judging from what they then said. And you must imagine that you
hear them saying what I now repeat to you:--
'Sons, the event proves that your fathers were brave men; for we might have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted
her eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows,
and prayed fervently.
"I am glad I cannot go down into the salon," she said to Monsieur
Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; "HE would
come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which HE blessed me. Do
you think HE will suspect me?"
"If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means
to get the assistance of the Paris police," said Bongrand.
"Whoever it is will know I am dying," said Ursula; "and will cease to
trouble me."
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