| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: little my curiosity not only had begun to ache again, but had
become the familiar torment of my days and my nights. There are
doubtless people to whom torments of such an order appear hardly
more natural than the contortions of disease; but I don't after all
know why I should in this connexion so much as mention them. For
the few persons, at any rate, abnormal or not, with whom my
anecdote is concerned, literature was a game of skill, and skill
meant courage, and courage meant honour, and honour meant passion,
meant life. The stake on the table was of a special substance and
our roulette the revolving mind, but we sat round the green board
as intently as the grim gamblers at Monte Carlo. Gwendolen Erme,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: Your silversmith has the faculty of walking in his sleep. This is the
third case I have seen of that singular malady. If you would give
yourself the amusement of watching him at such times, you would see
that old man stepping without danger at the very edge of the roof. I
noticed in the two other cases I have already observed, a curious
connection between the actions of that nocturnal existence and the
interests and occupations of their daily life."
"Ah! Maitre Coyctier, you are a wise man."
"I am your physician," replied the other, insolently.
At this answer, Louis XI. made the gesture which was customary with
him when a good idea was presented to his mind; he shoved up his cap
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: the soul does not set sail until she have obtained this she will be all the
safer in the voyage through life. But when she rushes in pursuit of wealth
or bodily strength or anything else, not having the knowledge of the best,
so much the more is she likely to meet with misfortune. And he who has the
love of learning (Or, reading polumatheian, 'abundant learning.'), and is
skilful in many arts, and does not possess the knowledge of the best, but
is under some other guidance, will make, as he deserves, a sorry voyage:--
he will, I believe, hurry through the brief space of human life, pilotless
in mid-ocean, and the words will apply to him in which the poet blamed his
enemy:--
'...Full many a thing he knew;
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