| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: rather let them be our chief and true panegyrists, who show in their lives
that they are true men, and had men for their sons. Of old the saying,
"Nothing too much," appeared to be, and really was, well said. For he
whose happiness rests with himself, if possible, wholly, and if not, as far
as is possible,--who is not hanging in suspense on other men, or changing
with the vicissitude of their fortune,--has his life ordered for the best.
He is the temperate and valiant and wise; and when his riches come and go,
when his children are given and taken away, he will remember the proverb--
"Neither rejoicing overmuch nor grieving overmuch," for he relies upon
himself. And such we would have our parents to be--that is our word and
wish, and as such we now offer ourselves, neither lamenting overmuch, nor
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: the death by the folly and obstinacy of the husbands, are redeemed
at last by the queenly patience and wisdom of the wives. In Measure
for Measure, the foul injustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice
of the brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and adamantine
purity of a woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's counsel, acted upon
in time, would have saved her son from all evil; his momentary
forgetfulness of it is his ruin; her prayer, at last granted, saves
him--not, indeed, from death, but from the curse of living as the
destroyer of his country.
And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a
lover who is a mere wicked child?--of Helena, against the petulance
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: was tempted to look about him; but, with the circumspection dictated
by all amorous enterprises, he was careful not to glance, even
furtively, at the walls; for he fully understood that if Cornelius
detected him, he would not allow so inquisitive a person to remain in
his house. He contented himself, therefore, by looking first at the
egg and then at the old woman, occasionally contemplating his future
master.
Louis XI.'s silversmith resembled that monarch. He had even acquired
the same gestures, as often happens where persons dwell together in a
sort of intimacy. The thick eyebrows of the Fleming almost covered his
eyes; but by raising them a little he could flash out a lucid,
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