| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: form and in their inner nature and qualities: then there will be two
Cratyluses, and not merely Cratylus and the image of Cratylus. But an
image in fact always falls short in some degree of the original, and if
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.'
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: making that other enquiry, which she had so unaccountably
connected with her investigations about the scarlet letter --
"Mother! Mother Why does the minister keep his hand over his
heart?"
"Hold thy tongue, naughty child!" answered her mother, with an
asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. "Do not
tease me; else I shall put thee into the dark closet!"
The Scarlet Letter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: like a slow and pale caress. He was very hot when
he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with
her sewing; her neck was very white under the light
of the lamp; but Falk, hiding his face in the palms
of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew them
down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes as-
tonished me by their tense and irrational expres-
sion--as though he had just swallowed a heavy
gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was
binding us to secrecy. Not that he cared, but he
did not like to be spoken about; and I looked at the
Falk |
