| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: governed by mind, and holding in solution a residuum of matter or evil,
which the author of the world is unable to expel, and of which Plato cannot
tell us the origin. The creation, in Plato's sense, is really the creation
of order; and the first step in giving order is the division of the heavens
into an inner and outer circle of the other and the same, of the divisible
and the indivisible, answering to the two spheres, of the planets and of
the world beyond them, all together moving around the earth, which is their
centre. To us there is a difficulty in apprehending how that which is at
rest can also be in motion, or that which is indivisible exist in space.
But the whole description is so ideal and imaginative, that we can hardly
venture to attribute to many of Plato's words in the Timaeus any more
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: him on his return journey; but Tydeus slew every man of them,
save only Maeon, whom he let go in obedience to heaven's omens.
Such was Tydeus of Aetolia. His son can talk more glibly, but he
cannot fight as his father did."
Diomed made no answer, for he was shamed by the rebuke of
Agamemnon; but the son of Capaneus took up his words and said,
"Son of Atreus, tell no lies, for you can speak truth if you
will. We boast ourselves as even better men than our fathers; we
took seven-gated Thebes, though the wall was stronger and our men
were fewer in number, for we trusted in the omens of the gods and
in the help of Jove, whereas they perished through their own
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: old man, he was not so much on his guard, and the sudden vibrating
of every nerve at the word "Marburg," found vent in the whistle
which surprised old Franz. One young police commissioner with a
fancy for metaphor had likened this sudden involuntary whistle of
Muller's to the bay of the hound when he strikes the trail; which
was about what it was.
"Yes, I am merry sometimes," he said with a laugh. "It's a habit
I have. Something occurred to me just then, something I had
forgotten. Hope you don't mind."
"Oh, no, there's no one here now, whistle all you like."
But Muller's whistle was not a continuous performance, and he had
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