| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: Diotima.
The speeches are attested to us by the very best authority. The madman
Apollodorus, who for three years past has made a daily study of the actions
of Socrates--to whom the world is summed up in the words 'Great is
Socrates'--he has heard them from another 'madman,' Aristodemus, who was
the 'shadow' of Socrates in days of old, like him going about barefooted,
and who had been present at the time. 'Would you desire better witness?'
The extraordinary narrative of Alcibiades is ingeniously represented as
admitted by Socrates, whose silence when he is invited to contradict gives
consent to the narrator. We may observe, by the way, (1) how the very
appearance of Aristodemus by himself is a sufficient indication to Agathon
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: from every rougher wind and to surround her with all that could tend to
excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health,
and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken
by what she had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed
previous to their marriage my father had gradually relinquished all
his public functions; and immediately after their union they sought
the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and interest
attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative
for her weakened frame.
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child,
was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles.
Frankenstein |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: He had come to confess and ask forgiveness. Massimilla, in prayer, had
converted him. He and God; nothing else dwelt in that heart.
The Duchess rose very unaffectedly, and held out her hand. Her lover
did not take it.
"Did not Gianbattista see you, yesterday?" she asked.
"No," he replied.
"That piece of ill-luck gave me a night of misery. I was so afraid
lest you might meet the Duke, whose perversity I know too well. What
made Vendramin let your palace to him?"
"It was a good idea, Milla, for your Prince is poor enough."
Massimilla was so beautiful in her trust of him, and so wonderfully
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