| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker
might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of
the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the
division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together,
and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces,
longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and
self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one
of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another
mate, man or woman as we call them,--being the sections of entire men or
women,--and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of
them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: Christian, with that charming consideration which serves to
distinguish the truly pious from the wolves that perish, exclaimed:
"If I could have my way, I'd blow up all your gods with dynamite."
"And if I could have mine," retorted the Heathen in His Blindness,
bitterly malevolent but oleaginuously suave, "I'd fan all yours out
of the universe."
The Desperate Object
A DISHONEST Gain was driving in its luxurious carriage through its
private park, when it saw something which frantically and
repeatedly ran against a stone wall, endeavouring to butt out its
brains.
Fantastic Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Of a fell tyrant. 'Twixt the Cyprian isle
And Balearic, ne'er hath Neptune seen
An injury so foul, by pirates done
Or Argive crew of old. That one-ey'd traitor
(Whose realm there is a spirit here were fain
His eye had still lack'd sight of) them shall bring
To conf'rence with him, then so shape his end,
That they shall need not 'gainst Focara's wind
Offer up vow nor pray'r." I answering thus:
"Declare, as thou dost wish that I above
May carry tidings of thee, who is he,
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
