| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: conclude that medicine is the science which is useful for getting rid of
disease. But if we are further asked, What is that from which, if we were
free, we should have no need of wealth? can we give an answer? If we have
none, suppose that we restate the question thus:--If a man could live
without food or drink, and yet suffer neither hunger nor thirst, would he
want either money or anything else in order to supply his needs?
ERYXIAS: He would not.
SOCRATES: And does not this apply in other cases? If we did not want for
the service of the body the things of which we now stand in need, and heat
and cold and the other bodily sensations were unperceived by us, there
would be no use in this so-called wealth, if no one, that is, had any
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: fell into their lap. One must make allowances for a parental instinct
that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years.
It is famished, it is crazed wit hunger by that time, and will be
entirely satisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied,
it can't tell mud cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is
measurably recognizable by them as a devil before long,
but a devil adopted by an old couple is an angel to them,
and remains so, through thick and thin. Tom is this old man's angel;
he is infatuated with him. Tom can persuade him into things which
other people can't--not all things; I don't mean that,
but a good many--particularly one class of things: the things that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: free to retreat and draw back if you wish to work your welfare.
Therefore I tell you, for I should commit treachery and do you
wrong were I not to tell you all the truth." Erec hears him and
admits that the King with reason counsels him. But the greater
the wonder and the more perilous the adventure, the more he
covets it and yearns for it, saying: "Sire, I can tell you that I
find you a worthy and a loyal man, and I can put no blame on you.
I wish to undertake {his boon, however it may fall out with me.
The die is cast, for I shall never draw back from anything I have
undertaken without exerting all my strength before I quit the
field." "I know that well," the King replied; "you are acting
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