| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: you, than of what the world, who are mostly fools, would say of me if I
granted it.' To these words he replied in the ironical manner which is so
characteristic of him:--'Alcibiades, my friend, you have indeed an elevated
aim if what you say is true, and if there really is in me any power by
which you may become better; truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a
kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you. And therefore, if you
mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for beauty, you will have
greatly the advantage of me; you will gain true beauty in return for
appearance--like Diomede, gold in exchange for brass. But look again,
sweet friend, and see whether you are not deceived in me. The mind begins
to grow critical when the bodily eye fails, and it will be a long time
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: was falling, or more accurately, condensing. The saturated air
was hardly cold. She stood on the pavement unmolested, while the
glow died lower and lower, until at last it was impossible to
trace the pacing figure. No one came to any of the windows. The
little lamp before the shrine in the wild-game shop burned itself
out; the Portier across the way came to the door, glanced up at
the sky and went in. Harmony heard the rattle of the chain as it
was stretched across the door inside.
Not all the windows of the suite opened on the street. Jimmy's
windows--and Peter's--opened toward the back of the house, where
in a brick-paved courtyard the wife of the Portier hung her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two
hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which
number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to
maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot
be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this
being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand
breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand, for those women who
miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the
year. There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children
of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, How
this number shall be reared, and provided for? which, as I have
A Modest Proposal |
