| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: images are not exact counterparts, why should names be? if they were, they
would be the doubles of their originals, and indistinguishable from them;
and how ridiculous would this be! Cratylus admits the truth of Socrates'
remark. But then Socrates rejoins, he should have the courage to
acknowledge that letters may be wrongly inserted in a noun, or a noun in a
sentence; and yet the noun or the sentence may retain a meaning. Better to
admit this, that we may not be punished like the traveller in Egina who
goes about at night, and that Truth herself may not say to us, 'Too late.'
And, errors excepted, we may still affirm that a name to be correct must
have proper letters, which bear a resemblance to the thing signified. I
must remind you of what Hermogenes and I were saying about the letter rho
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: hundred thousand francs the day when they were old enough to settle in
life, Guillaume regarded it as his duty to keep them under the rod of
an old-world despotism, unknown nowadays in the showy modern shops,
where the apprentices expect to be rich men at thirty. He made them
work like Negroes. These three assistants were equal to a business
which would harry ten such clerks as those whose sybaritical tastes
now swell the columns of the budget. Not a sound disturbed the peace
of this solemn house, where the hinges were always oiled, and where
the meanest article of furniture showed the respectable cleanliness
which reveals strict order and economy. The most waggish of the three
youths often amused himself by writing the date of its first
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: of Love.
Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the
air. She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow
she sailed across the garden.
In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful Rose-tree,
and when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray.
"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest
song."
But the Tree shook its head.
"My roses are white," it answered; "as white as the foam of the
sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my
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