| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: accumulating a sum sufficient to buy the thirty acres adjoining her
little estate at Lescheville. Those thirty acres are worth at least
sixty thousand francs. Such fine fields! Ah! if I had them I'd live
all my days at Lescheville, without other ambition! How my father used
to long for those thirty acres and the pretty brook which winds
through the meadows! But he died without ever being able to buy them.
Many's the time I've played there!"
"Monsieur Wahlenfer, haven't you also your 'hoc erat in votis'?" asked
Wilhelm.
"Yes, monsieur, but it came to pass, and now--"
The good man was silent, and did not finish his sentence.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: LYCHORIDA, nurse to Marina.
A Bawd.
Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and
Messengers.
DIANA.
GOWER, as Chorus.
SCENE: Dispersedly in various countries.
ACT I.
[Enter GOWER.]
[Before the palace of Antioch.]
To sing a song that old was sung,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: Lyc. But whence, then?
Soc. Theognis has told us:
From the good thou shalt learn good things, but if with the evil
Thou holdest converse, thou shalt lose the wit that is in thee.[9]
[9] Theog. 35 foll. See "Mem." I. ii. 20; Plat. "Men." 95 D.
Lyc. (turning to his son). Do you hear that, my son?
That he does (Socrates answered for the boy), and he puts the precept
into practice also; to judge, at any rate, from his behaviour. When he
had set his heart on carrying off the palm of victory in the
pankration, he took you into his counsel;[10] and will again take
counsel to discover the fittest friend to aid him in his high
The Symposium |
