| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: falsehood, between the Sophist and the philosopher. Everything could be
predicated of everything, or nothing of anything. To these difficulties
Plato finds what to us appears to be the answer of common sense--that Not-
being is the relative or other of Being, the defining and distinguishing
principle, and that some ideas combine with others, but not all with all.
It is remarkable however that he offers this obvious reply only as the
result of a long and tedious enquiry; by a great effort he is able to look
down as 'from a height' on the 'friends of the ideas' as well as on the
pre-Socratic philosophies. Yet he is merely asserting principles which no
one who could be made to understand them would deny.
The Platonic unity of differences or opposites is the beginning of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Take heed the Queene come not within his sight,
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A louely boy stolne from an Indian King,
She neuer had so sweet a changeling,
And iealous Oberon would haue the childe
Knight of his traine, to trace the Forrests wilde.
But she (perforce) with-holds the loued boy,
Crownes him with flowers, and makes him all her ioy.
And now they neuer meete in groue, or greene,
By fountaine cleere, or spangled star-light sheene,
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: that here was a heart worthy of tender love, a heart which,
notwithstanding, had never known the joys of love for a young and
beautiful woman of refinement and taste. He explained, without
attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. He flattered Mme. de
Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him the ideal lady of a
young man's dream, the ideal sought by so many, and so often sought in
vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings under the walls of
Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight of the house,
till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a woman can
find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake.
An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker
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