| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures. But when
the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them
out of earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements in the interior
of the earth; and when they were about to bring them into the light of day,
they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute to
them severally their proper qualities. Epimetheus said to Prometheus:
'Let me distribute, and do you inspect.' This was agreed, and Epimetheus
made the distribution. There were some to whom he gave strength without
swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness; some he armed, and
others he left unarmed; and devised for the latter some other means of
preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word
for the truth. At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's
room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars
each year, though the corporation had the advantage of building
thirty-two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers
the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a
residence in the fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had
more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be
needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired,
but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a great
measure vanish. Those conveniences which the student requires at
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Madame de Clagny. "Can you believe it?"
"Is it possible? Why, a Public Prosecutor gets but a thousand crowns!"
"Monsieur Gatien," said Madame Chandier, "get Monsieur Lousteau to
talk a little louder. I have not heard him yet."
"What pretty boots he wears," said Mademoiselle Chandier to her
brother, "and how they shine!"
"Yes--patent leather."
"Why haven't you the same?"
Lousteau began to feel that he was too much on show, and saw in the
manners of the good townsfolk indications of the desires that had
brought them there.
The Muse of the Department |
