| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: example, fire, water, and the rest of the elements. All these the creator
first set in order, and out of them he constructed the universe, which was
a single animal comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and
immortal. Now of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation
of the mortal he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him,
received from him the immortal principle of the soul; and around this they
proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and made it to be the vehicle of the
soul, and constructed within the body a soul of another nature which was
mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible affections,--first of all,
pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil; then, pain, which deters from
good; also rashness and fear, two foolish counsellors, anger hard to be
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: romance /a la/ Radcliffe, constructed on the juridical base given me
by Monsieur Regnault, when the door, opened by a woman's cautious
hand, turned on the hinges. I saw my landlady come in, a buxom, florid
dame, always good-humored, who had missed her calling in life. She was
a Fleming, who ought to have seen the light in a picture by Teniers.
" 'Well, monsieur,' said she, 'Monsieur Regnault has no doubt been
giving you his history of la Grande Breteche?'
" 'Yes, Madame Lepas.'
" 'And what did he tell you?'
"I repeated in a few words the creepy and sinister story of Madame de
Merret. At each sentence my hostess put her head forward, looking at
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: "'She must be, Richard. You have told me that Mr. Beverly is a married
man and about forty-five. No doubt he has older sisters and brothers. But
if he has not, his mother can hardly be less than sixty-five, and he has
probably been married for several years. He might easily have a daughter
coming out, next winter, and a son at Harvard or Yale; and if their
grandmother's hair is not grey, that is quite as unnatural as her
speculating in monopolised eggs in this way at her age. She must be a
very unladylike person.'"
"Ethel, I saw, was excited. Therefore I made no more point of her
theories concerning the appearance and family circle of old Mrs. Beverly.
But in justice to myself I felt obliged to remind her, first, that I was
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