| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: evening from my solicitor. I can't go into the details of the
business, but the upshot is that my worldly wealth is much more than I
thought, and I am (or shall soon be) in a position to offer marriage,
without imprudence, to any lady, even if she brought nothing. I doubt
if there would be anything on her side: the Earl is poor, I believe.
But I should have enough for both, even if health failed."
"I wish you all happiness in your married life!" I cried.
"Shall you speak to the Earl to-morrow?"
"Not yet awhile," said Arthur. "He is very friendly, but I dare not
think he means more than that, as yet. And as for--as for Lady Muriel,
try as I may, I cannot read her feelings towards me. If there is love,
Sylvie and Bruno |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: Theaetetus proposes: 'Knowledge is sensible perception.' This is speedily
identified with the Protagorean saying, 'Man is the measure of all things;'
and of this again the foundation is discovered in the perpetual flux of
Heracleitus. The relativeness of sensation is then developed at length,
and for a moment the definition appears to be accepted. But soon the
Protagorean thesis is pronounced to be suicidal; for the adversaries of
Protagoras are as good a measure as he is, and they deny his doctrine. He
is then supposed to reply that the perception may be true at any given
instant. But the reply is in the end shown to be inconsistent with the
Heraclitean foundation, on which the doctrine has been affirmed to rest.
For if the Heraclitean flux is extended to every sort of change in every
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,;
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
CL
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
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