| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her
the following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:--
"Countess,--To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your
contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When
I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom
we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I
loved you thus,--I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were
about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,--a voluntary service, but
still the steward of your household.
"In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an
indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Sole Monarch of the vniuersall earth:
O what a beast was I to chide him?
Nur. Will you speake well of him,
That kil'd your Cozen?
Iul. Shall I speake ill of him that is my husband?
Ah poore my Lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three houres wife haue mangled it.
But wherefore Villaine did'st thou kill my Cozin?
That Villaine Cozin would haue kil'd my husband:
Backe foolish teares, backe to your natiue spring,
Your tributarie drops belong to woe,
Romeo and Juliet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or
inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their
spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes
with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the
greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and
in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later
ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected
to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over
above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of
political and literary transition? Certainly not Plato, whose earlier
writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of
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