| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with
Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple
husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained from
books, but of a higher tone,--a tranquil and familiar majesty, as
if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends.
Whether it were sage, statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest
received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had
characterized him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of
whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or their
own. While they talked together, his face would kindle, unawares,
and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. Pensive with
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: Sameness, and the like. At times they seem to be parted by a great gulf
(Parmenides); at other times they have a common nature, and the light of a
common intelligence.
But this ever-growing idea of mind is really irreconcilable with the
abstract Pantheism of the Eleatics. To the passionate language of
Parmenides, Plato replies in a strain equally passionate:--What! has not
Being mind? and is not Being capable of being known? and, if this is
admitted, then capable of being affected or acted upon?--in motion, then,
and yet not wholly incapable of rest. Already we have been compelled to
attribute opposite determinations to Being. And the answer to the
difficulty about Being may be equally the answer to the difficulty about
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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: in his arms if it cost the life of two men.
Presently his feet gently touched the warm embers; he bent more gently
still and saw the countess seated in an armchair; and she saw him.
Pale with joy and palpitating, the timid creature showed him, by the
light of the lamp, Saint-Vallier lying in a bed about ten feet from
her. We may well believe their burning silent kisses echoed only in
their hearts.
CHAPTER III
THE ROBBERY OF THE JEWELS OF THE DUKE OF BAVARIA
The next day, about nine in the morning, as Louis XI. was leaving his
chapel after hearing mass, he found Maitre Cornelius on his path.
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