| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: To shun mankind for the scars that make him
A joke for all chattering tongues, he carries
A double burden. The woes I suffered
After that hard betrayal made me
Pity, at first, all breathing creatures
On this bewildered earth. I studied
Their faces and made for myself the story
Of all their scattered lives. Like brothers
And sisters they seemed to me then; and I nourished
A stranger friendship wrought in my fancy
Between those people and me. But somehow,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: seller of herbs, but must when once the coin is shown, deliver
what is sold for it, whether he will or no. So is it also with
the Soul. Once the Good appears, it attracts towards itself; evil
repels. But a clear and certain impression of the Good the Soul
will never reject, any more than men do Caesar's coin. On this
hangs every impulse alike of Man and God.
XC
Asked what Common Sense was, Epictetus replied:--
As that may be called a Common Ear which distinguishes only
sounds, while that which distinguishes musical notes is not
common but produced by training; so there are certain things
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: from the gestures and movements of the lips.
"I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de
Justice, and am named Poincet."
"Good! . . . and this one?" said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
mulatto.
"I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish /patois/, and he has
brought me here to make himself understood by you."
The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
"Ah--so--the game is beginning," said Henri to himself. "Paul, leave
us alone for a moment."
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
