| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: tetrarch had no doubt whatever of the exactness of Phanuel's skill in
astrology.
Suddenly he bethought him of Herodias. He would consult her. He hated
her, certainly, but she might give him courage; and besides, in spite
of his dislike, not all the bonds were yet broken of that sorcery
which once she had woven about him.
When he entered her chamber, he was met by the pungent odour of
cinnamon burning in a porphyry vase and the perfume of powders,
unguents, cloud-like gauzes and embroideries light as feathers, filled
the air with fragrance.
He did not speak of Phanuel's prophecy, nor of his own fear of the
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions;
she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever,
but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced
to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within
the next twelvemonth or two. Then might she again take up
the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,
but now she liked it not. Always to be presented with the date of
her own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister,
made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it
open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes,
and pushed it away.
Persuasion |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their
natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them;
she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be
that which she simulates, and having no regard for men's highest interests,
is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the
belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the
disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the
body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in
which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children,
as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the
physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of
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