| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war's abyss!
And then I'll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.
And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: On what was D'Artagnan thinking, that he strayed thus from his
path, gazing at the stars of heaven, and sometimes sighing,
sometimes smiling?
He was thinking of Mme. Bonacieux. For an apprentice Musketeer
the young woman was almost an ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious,
initiated in almost all the secrets of the court, which reflected
such a charming gravity over her pleasing features, it might be
surmised that she was not wholly unmoved; and this is an
irresistible charm to novices in love. Moreover, D'Artagnan had
delivered her from the hands of the demons who wished to search
and ill treat her; and this important service had established
The Three Musketeers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: they were encouraged by the practice of gymnastic exercises, by the
meetings of political clubs, and by the tie of military companionship.
They were also an educational institution: a young person was specially
entrusted by his parents to some elder friend who was expected by them to
train their son in manly exercises and in virtue. It is not likely that a
Greek parent committed him to a lover, any more than we should to a
schoolmaster, in the expectation that he would be corrupted by him, but
rather in the hope that his morals would be better cared for than was
possible in a great household of slaves.
It is difficult to adduce the authority of Plato either for or against such
practices or customs, because it is not always easy to determine whether he
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