| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: his purse in order to empty it into mine. - I've enough in
conscience, Eugenius, said I. - Indeed, Yorick, you have not,
replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you. - But
you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that
before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or
do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the
Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at
the king of France's expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily:
really I had forgot that resource.
Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: names of Cronos and Rhea to the ancestors of the Gods, agreed pretty much
in the doctrine of Heracleitus? Is the giving of the names of streams to
both of them purely accidental? Compare the line in which Homer, and, as I
believe, Hesiod also, tells of
'Ocean, the origin of Gods, and mother Tethys (Il.--the line is not found
in the extant works of Hesiod.).'
And again, Orpheus says, that
'The fair river of Ocean was the first to marry, and he espoused his sister
Tethys, who was his mother's daughter.'
You see that this is a remarkable coincidence, and all in the direction of
Heracleitus.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: to measure six paces" . . .
"Take your places!" repeated Ivan Ignatevich,
in a squeaky voice.
"Excuse me!" I said. "One further con-
dition. As we are going to fight to the death, we
are bound to do everything possible in order that
the affair may remain a secret, and that our
seconds may incur no responsibility. Do you
agree?" . . .
"Quite."
"Well, then, this is my idea. Do you see that
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