| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: sophistical or interested, and then both yield to that higher view of love
which is afterwards revealed to us. The extreme of commonplace is
contrasted with the most ideal and imaginative of speculations. Socrates,
half in jest and to satisfy his own wild humour, takes the disguise of
Lysias, but he is also in profound earnest and in a deeper vein of irony
than usual. Having improvised his own speech, which is based upon the
model of the preceding, he condemns them both. Yet the condemnation is not
to be taken seriously, for he is evidently trying to express an aspect of
the truth. To understand him, we must make abstraction of morality and of
the Greek manner of regarding the relation of the sexes. In this, as in
his other discussions about love, what Plato says of the loves of men must
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that
it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God
upon the generations of men; it being foretold,
that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith
upon the earth.
Of Death
MEN fear death, as children fear to go in the
dark; and as that natural fear in children,
is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly,
the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin,
and passage to another world, is holy and relig-
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: will do as you please; I should have done the same at your age.
Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my right to be the
mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. The
Vidame is right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices
which we are foolish enough to make for their love. Put yourself
in such a position that you may still be M. de Langeais's wife,
in case you should have the misfortune to repent. When you are
an old woman, you will be very glad to hear mass said at Court,
and not in some provincial convent. Therein lies the whole
question. A single imprudence means an allowance and a wandering
life; it means that you are at the mercy of your lover; it means
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