| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied: although he is the most
incredulous of mortals, yet I believe that he is sufficiently convinced of
the existence of the soul before birth. But that after death the soul will
continue to exist is not yet proven even to my own satisfaction. I cannot
get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring--the
feeling that when the man dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this
may be the extinction of her. For admitting that she may have been born
elsewhere, and framed out of other elements, and was in existence before
entering the human body, why after having entered in and gone out again may
she not herself be destroyed and come to an end?
Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; about half of what was required has been
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: to produce that illusion in the girl's mind, she made her a little
Breton cap like the one Pierrette had worn on her first arrival in
Provins; it made the darling seem more like her childlike self; in it
she was delightful to look upon, her sweet face circled with a halo of
cambric and fluted lace. Her skin, white with the whiteness of
unglazed porcelain, her forehead, where suffering had printed the
semblance of deep thought, the purity of the lines refined by illness,
the slowness of the glances, and the occasional fixity of the eyes,
made Pierrette an almost perfect embodiment of melancholy. She was
served by all with a sort of fanaticism; she was felt to be so gentle,
so tender, so loving. Madame Martener sent her piano to her sister
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: their glasses, and scarcely removing the long, bent stems, which
terminated in china bowls painted in a manner to delight a
Hottentot, from their mouths.
As soon as their glasses were empty, they filled them again, with
a gesture of resigned weariness, but Mademoiselle Fifi emptied
his every minute, and a soldier immediately gave him another.
They were enveloped in a cloud of strong tobacco smoke; they
seemed to be sunk in a state of drowsy, stupid intoxication, in
that dull state of drunkenness of men who have nothing to do,
when suddenly, the baron sat up, and said: "By heavens! This
cannot go on; we must think of something to do." And on hearing
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