| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: bronze, the clumsy cast chandelier merely lacquered, with cheap glass
saucers, the carpet, whose small cost was accounted for in advancing
life by the quality of cotton used in the manufacture, now visible to
the naked eye,--everything, down to the curtains, which plainly showed
that worsted damask has not three years of prime, proclaimed poverty
as loudly as a beggar in rags at a church door.
The dining-room, badly kept by a single servant, had the sickening
aspect of a country inn; everything looked greasy and unclean.
Monsieur's room, very like a schoolboy's, furnished with the bed and
fittings remaining from his bachelor days, as shabby and worn as he
was, dusted perhaps once a week--that horrible room where everything
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: to admit at the suggestion of Socrates; and, in the spirit of Socrates and
of Greek life generally, proposes as a fifth definition, (5) Temperance is
self-knowledge. But all sciences have a subject: number is the subject of
arithmetic, health of medicine--what is the subject of temperance or
wisdom? The answer is that (6) Temperance is the knowledge of what a man
knows and of what he does not know. But this is contrary to analogy; there
is no vision of vision, but only of visible things; no love of loves, but
only of beautiful things; how then can there be a knowledge of knowledge?
That which is older, heavier, lighter, is older, heavier, and lighter than
something else, not than itself, and this seems to be true of all relative
notions--the object of relation is outside of them; at any rate they can
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: and stretched himself in front of the fire. But he was uneasy,
and kept his head up, and growled between his teeth.
Ulrich, in turn, recovered his senses, but as he felt faint with
terror, he went and got a bottle of brandy out of the sideboard,
and drank off several glasses, one after another, at a gulp. His
ideas became vague, his courage revived, and a feverish glow ran
through his veins.
He ate scarcely anything the next day, and limited himself to
alcohol; so he lived for several days, like a drunken brute. As
soon as he thought of Gaspard Hari he began to drink again, and
went on drinking until he fell on to the floor, overcome by
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