| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Yes, I said, some one who knows the past and present as well as the future,
and is ignorant of nothing. Let us suppose that there is such a person,
and if there is, you will allow that he is the most knowing of all living
men.
Certainly he is.
Yet I should like to know one thing more: which of the different kinds of
knowledge makes him happy? or do all equally make him happy?
Not all equally, he replied.
But which most tends to make him happy? the knowledge of what past,
present, or future thing? May I infer this to be the knowledge of the game
of draughts?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: chest. I looked at the closed eyelids, and thought I detected
a quivering. Then the lids opened, shewing eyes which were grey,
calm, and alive, but still unintelligent and not even curious.
In a moment of fantastic whim I whispered questions to the reddening
ears; questions of other worlds of which the memory might still
be present. Subsequent terror drove them from my mind, but I think
the last one, which I repeated, was: "Where have you been?" I
do not yet know whether I was answered or not, for no sound came
from the well-shaped mouth; but I do know that at that moment
I firmly thought the thin lips moved silently, forming syllables
which I would have vocalised as "only now" if that phrase had
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: "Du lieber Gott! Where? How?"
"Outside the hairdresser's shop in the Station Road."
"Jesus and Maria! Has she no water with her?"--he seized his carafe--
"nobody beside her?"
"Nothing."
"Where is my coat? No matter, I shall catch a cold on the chest.
Willingly, I shall catch one...You are ready to come with me?"
"No," I said; "you can take the waiter."
"But she must have a woman. I cannot be so indelicate as to attempt to
loosen her stays."
"Modern souls oughtn't to wear them," said I. He pushed past me and
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