| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: seemed to me that if I could ensure a moment's interview with
her, I could not fail to regain my influence over her affections.
I so well knew how to excite her sensibilities! I was so
confident of her love for me! The very whim even of sending me a
pretty woman by way of consoling me, I would stake my existence,
was her idea, and that it was the suggestion of her own sincere
sympathy for my sufferings.
"I resolved to exert every nerve to procure an interview. After
a multitude of plans which I canvassed one after another, I fixed
upon the following: M. de T---- had shown so much sincerity in
the services he had rendered me, that I could not entertain a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: let you have your own way, and will not interfere with your happiness; her
wool, or the piece of cloth which she is weaving, are at your disposal: I
am sure that there is nothing to hinder you from touching her wooden
spathe, or her comb, or any other of her spinning implements.
Nay, Socrates, he replied, laughing; not only does she hinder me, but I
should be beaten if I were to touch one of them.
Well, I said, this is amazing. And did you ever behave ill to your father
or your mother?
No, indeed, he replied.
But why then are they so terribly anxious to prevent you from being happy,
and doing as you like?--keeping you all day long in subjection to another,
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: without reference to the scientific curve. The first-born of the
species knew it and put it into practice; it was as perfect in the
dawn of creation as it can be to-day.
Let us study, in this connection, the Ammonites, those venerable
relics of what was once the highest expression of living things, at
the time when the solid land was taking shape from the oceanic
ooze. Cut and polished length-wise, the fossil shows a magnificent
logarithmic spiral, the general pattern of the dwelling which was a
pearl palace, with numerous chambers traversed by a siphuncular
corridor.
To this day, the last representative of the Cephalopoda with
The Life of the Spider |
