| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: to his father Acumenus, and to say to him: 'I know how to apply drugs
which shall have either a heating or a cooling effect, and I can give a
vomit and also a purge, and all that sort of thing; and knowing all this,
as I do, I claim to be a physician and to make physicians by imparting this
knowledge to others,'--what do you suppose that they would say?
PHAEDRUS: They would be sure to ask him whether he knew 'to whom' he would
give his medicines, and 'when,' and 'how much.'
SOCRATES: And suppose that he were to reply: 'No; I know nothing of all
that; I expect the patient who consults me to be able to do these things
for himself'?
PHAEDRUS: They would say in reply that he is a madman or a pedant who
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: And the first surprise came very soon, when the explosives (to which
he owed his sudden chance of engagement)--dynamite in cases and
blasting powder in barrels--taken on board, main hatch battened for
sea, cook restored to his functions in the galley, anchor fished and
the tug ahead, rounding the South Foreland, and with the sun sinking
clear and red down the purple vista of the channel, he went on the
poop, on duty, it is true, but with time to take the first freer
breath in the busy day of departure. The pilot was still on board,
who gave him first a silent glance, and then passed an insignificant
remark before resuming his lounging to and fro between the steering
wheel and the binnacle. Powell took his station modestly at the
Chance |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: certain smile which she keeps for me alone; for me, her voice grows
softer still. Oh, yes! she loves me! But she adores her father; she
tells me of his kindness, his gentleness, his excellent qualities.
Those praises are so many dagger-thrusts with which she stabs me to
the heart.
One day I came near making myself the accomplice, as it were, of the
crime which led to the opulence of the Taillefer family. I was on the
point of asking the father for Victorine's hand. But I fled; I
travelled; I went to Germany, to Andernach; and then--I returned! I
found Victorine pale, and thinner; if I had seen her well in health
and gay, I should certainly have been saved. Instead of which my love
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