| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: follow the title; but the duke had left her in his will about sixty
thousand ducats, and this sum the heirs of the collateral branch did
not seek to retain. Though the feeling which united her to Balthazar
Claes was such that no thought of personal interest could ever sully
it, Josephine felt a certain pleasure in possessing a fortune equal to
that of her husband, and was happy in giving something to one who had
so nobly given everything to her. Thus, a mere chance turned a
marriage which worldly minds had declared foolish, into an excellent
alliance, seen from the standpoint of material interests. The use to
which this sum of money should be put became, however, somewhat
difficult to determine.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: extreme to the point of unaccountability. If at that point we
dimmed our torch to the very lowest limit of traveling need, keeping
it strictly in front of us, the frightened squawking motions of
the huge birds in the mist might muffle our footfalls, screen
our true course, and somehow set up a false lead. Amidst the churning,
spiraling fog, the littered and unglistening floor of the main
tunnel beyond this point, as differing from the other morbidly
polished burrows, could hardly form a highly distinguishing feature;
even, so far as we could conjecture, for those indicated special
senses which made the Old Ones partly, though imperfectly, independent
of light in emergencies. In fact, we were somewhat apprehensive
At the Mountains of Madness |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: which he hears is 'Be temperate!' This, however, like a prophet he
expresses in a sort of riddle, for 'Know thyself!' and 'Be temperate!' are
the same, as I maintain, and as the letters imply (Greek), and yet they may
be easily misunderstood; and succeeding sages who added 'Never too much,'
or, 'Give a pledge, and evil is nigh at hand,' would appear to have so
misunderstood them; for they imagined that 'Know thyself!' was a piece of
advice which the god gave, and not his salutation of the worshippers at
their first coming in; and they dedicated their own inscription under the
idea that they too would give equally useful pieces of advice. Shall I
tell you, Socrates, why I say all this? My object is to leave the previous
discussion (in which I know not whether you or I are more right, but, at
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