| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: SOCRATES: But that, Theaetetus, was not the point of my question: we
wanted to know not the subjects, nor yet the number of the arts or
sciences, for we were not going to count them, but we wanted to know the
nature of knowledge in the abstract. Am I not right?
THEAETETUS: Perfectly right.
SOCRATES: Let me offer an illustration: Suppose that a person were to ask
about some very trivial and obvious thing--for example, What is clay? and
we were to reply, that there is a clay of potters, there is a clay of oven-
makers, there is a clay of brick-makers; would not the answer be
ridiculous?
THEAETETUS: Truly.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: "It is you who makes me uneasy," said La Cibot. "I shall be talked
about; the neighbors will see you making sheep's eyes at me."
She left the doorway and dived into the Auvergnat's back shop.
"What a notion!" said Remonencq.
"Come here, I have something to say to you," said La Cibot. "M. Pons'
heirs are about to make a stir; they are capable of giving us a lot of
trouble. God knows what might come of it if they send the lawyers here
to poke their noses into the affair like hunting-dogs. I cannot get M.
Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless you like me well enough to keep
the secret--such a secret!--With your head on the block, you must not
say where the pictures come from, nor who it was that sold them. When
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: is the madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which taking hold
of a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical
and all other numbers; with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient
heroes for the instruction of posterity. But he who, having no touch of
the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will
get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not
admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into
rivalry with the madman.
I might tell of many other noble deeds which have sprung from inspired
madness. And therefore, let no one frighten or flutter us by saying that
the temperate friend is to be chosen rather than the inspired, but let him
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