| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: into harmony when the swifter motions begin to pause and are overtaken by
the slower.
The general phenomena of sensation are partly internal, but the more
violent are caused by conflict with external objects. Proceeding by a
method of superficial observation, Plato remarks that the more sensitive
parts of the human frame are those which are least covered by flesh, as is
the case with the head and the elbows. Man, if his head had been covered
with a thicker pulp of flesh, might have been a longer-lived animal than he
is, but could not have had as quick perceptions. On the other hand, the
tongue is one of the most sensitive of organs; but then this is made, not
to be a covering to the bones which contain the marrow or source of life,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows.
You talk almost like Ida: ~she~ can talk;
And there is something in it as you say:
But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it.--
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince,
I would he had our daughter: for the rest,
Our own detention, why, the causes weighed,
Fatherly fears--you used us courteously--
We would do much to gratify your Prince--
We pardon it; and for your ingress here
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: animals, who cannot run on account of the extreme flexibility of the
vertebral column. Mignonne arrived, her jaws covered with blood; she
received the wonted caress of her companion, showing with much purring
how happy it made her. Her eyes, full of languor, turned still more
gently than the day before toward the Provencal, who talked to her as
one would to a tame animal.
"Ah! mademoiselle, you are a nice girl, aren't you? Just look at that!
So we like to be made much of, don't we? Aren't you ashamed of
yourself? So you have been eating some Arab or other, have you? That
doesn't matter. They're animals just the same as you are; but don't
you take to eating Frenchmen, or I shan't like you any longer."
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