| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: suffering diminution; the name of astra (stars) seems to be derived from
astrape, which is an improvement on anastrope, signifying the upsetting of
the eyes (anastrephein opa).
HERMOGENES: What do you say of pur (fire) and udor (water)?
SOCRATES: I am at a loss how to explain pur; either the muse of Euthyphro
has deserted me, or there is some very great difficulty in the word.
Please, however, to note the contrivance which I adopt whenever I am in a
difficulty of this sort.
HERMOGENES: What is it?
SOCRATES: I will tell you; but I should like to know first whether you can
tell me what is the meaning of the pur?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: distinguished from Oberon I have already spoken; but one of the
most marked instances is in the case of the dress of Coriolanus,
for which Shakespeare goes directly to Plutarch. That historian,
in his Life of the great Roman, tells us of the oak-wreath with
which Caius Marcius was crowned, and of the curious kind of dress
in which, according to ancient fashion, he had to canvass his
electors; and on both of these points he enters into long
disquisitions, investigating the origin and meaning of the old
customs. Shakespeare, in the spirit of the true artist, accepts
the facts of the antiquarian and converts them into dramatic and
picturesque effects: indeed the gown of humility, the 'woolvish
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: of the time. Still, if harmony at least had prevailed, if the
furniture of modern mahogany had but assumed the twisted forms of
which Boucher's corrupt taste first set the fashion, Angelique's room
would only have suggested the fantastic contrast of a young couple in
the nineteenth century living as though they were in the eighteenth;
but a number of details were in ridiculous discord. The consoles, the
clocks, the candelabra, were decorated with the military trophies
which the wars of the Empire commended to the affections of the
Parisians; and the Greek helmets, the Roman crossed daggers, and the
shields so dear to military enthusiasm that they were introduced on
furniture of the most peaceful uses, had no fitness side by side with
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