| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: his dark-plumed bird he held it, and looked into its beautiful eyes, and
the bird uttered its low, deep cry--"Immortality!"
And he said quickly: "I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eats no
food. I will hide it in my breast; I will take it with me." And he buried
it there and covered it over with his cloak.
But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heavier--till it lay on
his breast like lead. He could not move with it. He could not leave those
valleys with it. Then again he took it out and looked at it.
"Oh, my beautiful! my heart's own!" he cried, "may I not keep you?"
He opened his hands sadly.
"Go!" he said. "It may happen that in Truth's song one note is like yours;
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Listomere's. Oh, what didn't I lose in losing the Abbe Chapeloud! Such
an amiable man, and so easy to live with! In twelve whole years I
never had the slightest difficulty or disagreement with him."
Presented thus, the innocent abbe was considered by this bourgeois
society, which secretly hated the aristocratic society, as a man
essentially exacting and hard to get along with. For a week
Mademoiselle Gamard enjoyed the pleasure of being pitied by friends
who, without really thinking one word of what they said, kept
repeating to her: "How COULD he have turned against you?--so kind and
gentle as you are!" or, "Console yourself, dear Mademoiselle Gamard,
you are so well known that--" et cetera.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: still beardless, and younger far). And greatly as the gods honour the
virtue of love, still the return of love on the part of the beloved to the
lover is more admired and valued and rewarded by them, for the lover is
more divine; because he is inspired by God. Now Achilles was quite aware,
for he had been told by his mother, that he might avoid death and return
home, and live to a good old age, if he abstained from slaying Hector.
Nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend, and dared to die, not
only in his defence, but after he was dead. Wherefore the gods honoured
him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the Blest. These
are my reasons for affirming that Love is the eldest and noblest and
mightiest of the gods; and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life,
|
