| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: too strong, in their fiery beauty. In a sudden revulsion
of mood, and almost without knowing what he did, he
signed to the florist to lay the roses in another long
box, and slipped his card into a second envelope, on
which he wrote the name of the Countess Olenska;
then, just as he was turning away, he drew the card out
again, and left the empty envelope on the box.
"They'll go at once?" he enquired, pointing to the
roses.
The florist assured him that they would.
X.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: himself. And the purgation was a recantation, which began thus,--
'False is that word of mine--the truth is that thou didst not embark in
ships, nor ever go to the walls of Troy;'
and when he had completed his poem, which is called 'the recantation,'
immediately his sight returned to him. Now I will be wiser than either
Stesichorus or Homer, in that I am going to make my recantation for
reviling love before I suffer; and this I will attempt, not as before,
veiled and ashamed, but with forehead bold and bare.
PHAEDRUS: Nothing could be more agreeable to me than to hear you say so.
SOCRATES: Only think, my good Phaedrus, what an utter want of delicacy was
shown in the two discourses; I mean, in my own and in that which you
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: evening, for the neighbors, pitying her situation, would frequently
come to play at boston in her salon, Margaritis remained silent in a
corner and never stirred. But the moment ten o'clock began to strike
on a clock which he kept shut up in a large oblong closet, he rose at
the stroke with the mechanical precision of the figures which are made
to move by springs in the German toys. He would then advance slowly
towards the players, give them a glance like the automatic gaze of the
Greeks and Turks exhibited on the Boulevard du Temple, and say
sternly, "Go away!" There were days when he had lucid intervals and
could give his wife excellent advice as to the sale of their wines;
but at such times he became extremely annoying, and would ransack her
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