| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint
dawn wind.
"I spoke to her," he muttered, after a long silence. "I told her she might
fool me but she couldn't fool God. I took her to the window."--with an
effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face
pressed against it----" and I said 'God knows what you've been doing,
everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!'"
Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the
eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous,
from the dissolving night.
"God sees everything," repeated Wilson.
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: nicknamed the thinker?[7]
[7] Apparently he has been to see the "Clouds" (exhibited first in 423
B.C.), and has conceived certain ideas concerning Socrates, "a
wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into
the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause."
Plat. "Apol." 18 B, 19 C. "Clouds," 101, 360, {khair o presbuta
. . . ton nun meteorosophiston . . . ta te meteora phrontistes}.
Soc. Which surely is a better fate than to be called a thoughtless
person?
The Syr. Perhaps, if you were not thought to split your brains on
things above us--transcendental stuff.[8]
The Symposium |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: see me married; you left me at liberty to make my choice; my choice is
irrevocably made--what more is needful?"
"It is needful to ascertain, my dear, whether the man of your choice
is the son of a peer of France," the venerable gentleman retorted
sarcastically.
Emilie was silent for a moment. She presently raised her head, looked
at her father, and said somewhat anxiously, "Are not the
Longuevilles----?"
"They became extinct in the person of the old Duc de Rostein-Limbourg,
who perished on the scaffold in 1793. He was the last representative
of the last and younger branch."
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