| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: Aristophanes. Hence he is naturally the upholder of male loves, which,
like all the other affections or actions of men, he regards as varying
according to the manner of their performance. Like the sophists and like
Plato himself, though in a different sense, he begins his discussion by an
appeal to mythology, and distinguishes between the elder and younger love.
The value which he attributes to such loves as motives to virtue and
philosophy is at variance with modern and Christian notions, but is in
accordance with Hellenic sentiment. The opinion of Christendom has not
altogether condemned passionate friendships between persons of the same
sex, but has certainly not encouraged them, because though innocent in
themselves in a few temperaments they are liable to degenerate into fearful
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to
it, "That is the Circus."
He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the
Foreign office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before
the count and countess were up.
"I have lost a friend," said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he
heard that Paz had gone,--"a friend in the true meaning of the word. I
don't know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my
house. We are not friends to quarrel about a woman," he said, looking
intently at Clementine. "You heard what he said yesterday about
Malaga. Well, he has never so much as touched the little finger of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: And now that he was in the Senate his relatives obtained for him
the post of Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and he had to go in a
carriage, dressed in an embroidered uniform and a white linen
apron, to thank all sorts of people for having placed him in the
position of a lackey. However much he tried he could find no
reasonable explanation for the existence of this post, and felt,
more than in the Senate, that it was not "the right thing," and
yet he could not refuse it for fear of hurting those who felt
sure they were giving him much pleasure by this appointment, and
because it flattered the lowest part of his nature. It pleased
him to see himself in a mirror in his gold-embroidered uniform,
Resurrection |
