| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: sensibly; and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks
or globules like bubbles of light, many colored,--green, yellow,
fire-red, azure. Up and down, to and fro, hither, thither as tiny
Will-o'-the-Wisps, the sparks moved, slow or swift, each at its own
caprice. A chair (as in the drawing-room below) was now advanced
from the wall without apparent agency, and placed at the opposite
side of the table. Suddenly, as forth from the chair, there grew a
shape,--a woman's shape. It was distinct as a shape of life,--
ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of youth, with a
strange, mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were bare, the
rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: in refutation of others. And though I may appear ridiculous in venturing
to advise you, I think that you may as well hear what was said to me by a
man of very considerable pretensions--he was a professor of legal oratory--
who came away from you while I was walking up and down. 'Crito,' said he
to me, 'are you giving no attention to these wise men?' 'No, indeed,' I
said to him; 'I could not get within hearing of them--there was such a
crowd.' 'You would have heard something worth hearing if you had.' 'What
was that?' I said. 'You would have heard the greatest masters of the art
of rhetoric discoursing.' 'And what did you think of them?' I said. 'What
did I think of them?' he said:--'theirs was the sort of discourse which
anybody might hear from men who were playing the fool, and making much ado
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded.
That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supreme and stars of love;
As chorus to their tragic scene.
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