| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: PHAEDRUS: Hippocrates the Asclepiad says that the nature even of the body
can only be understood as a whole. (Compare Charmides.)
SOCRATES: Yes, friend, and he was right:--still, we ought not to be
content with the name of Hippocrates, but to examine and see whether his
argument agrees with his conception of nature.
PHAEDRUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then consider what truth as well as Hippocrates says about this
or about any other nature. Ought we not to consider first whether that
which we wish to learn and to teach is a simple or multiform thing, and if
simple, then to enquire what power it has of acting or being acted upon in
relation to other things, and if multiform, then to number the forms; and
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: goal. From his face and gait, doubt and indecision, all hesitating and
wavering traits disappeared of themselves. Fire gleamed in his eyes,
and occasionally the boldest and most daring ideas flitted through his
mind; why not, for instance, have marten fur on the collar? The
thought of this almost made him absent-minded. Once, in copying a
letter, he nearly made a mistake, so that he exclaimed almost aloud,
"Ugh!" and crossed himself. Once, in the course of every month, he had
a conference with Petrovitch on the subject of the cloak, where it
would be better to buy the cloth, and the colour, and the price. He
always returned home satisfied, though troubled, reflecting that the
time would come at last when it could all be bought, and then the
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: cherry and flings away the stone. The next morning at breakfast time,
when she was fully convinced that she was a lady and the mistress of
the house, Castanier uttered one by one the thoughts that filled her
mind as she drank her coffee.
"Do you know what you are thinking, child?" he said, smiling. "I will
tell you: 'So all that lovely rosewood furniture that I coveted so
much, and the pretty dresses that I used to try on, are mine now! All
on easy terms that Madame refused, I do no know why. My word! if I
might drive about in a carriage, have jewels and pretty things, a box
at the theatre, and put something by! with me he should lead a life of
pleasure fit to kill him if he were not as strong as a Turk! I never
|
