| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: as well as body, began to vanish away; and the bodies of those who had died
by violence, in a few moments underwent a parallel change and disappeared.
In that cycle of existence there was no such thing as the procreation of
animals from one another, but they were born of the earth, and of this our
ancestors, who came into being immediately after the end of the last cycle
and at the beginning of this, have preserved the recollection. Such
traditions are often now unduly discredited, and yet they may be proved by
internal evidence. For observe how consistent the narrative is; as the old
returned to youth, so the dead returned to life; the wheel of their
existence having been reversed, they rose again from the earth: a few only
were reserved by God for another destiny. Such was the origin of the
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: fifteen minutes, it turns to a pulp, while an old book left in water
for a couple of hours is not spoilt. You could dry the old book, and
the pages, though yellow and faded, would still be legible, the work
would not be destroyed.
"There is a time coming when legislation will equalize our fortunes,
and we shall all be poor together; we shall want our linen and our
books to be cheap, just as people are beginning to prefer small
pictures because they have not wall space enough for large ones. Well,
the shirts and the books will not last, that is all; it is the same on
all sides, solidity is drying out. So this problem is one of the first
importance for literature, science, and politics.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: soon as he retires from business. He set himself, noble heart, to
sacrifice himself to his wife, now that her fortune was lost, that
fortune of which she had allowed herself to be despoiled so easily,
after the manner of a girl entirely ignorant of money matters. Mme.
d'Aldrigger accordingly missed not a single pleasure to which she had
been accustomed; any void caused by the loss of Strasbourg
acquaintances were speedily filled, and more than filled, with Paris
gaieties.
"Even then as now the Nucingens lived at the higher end of financial
society, and the Baron de Nucingen made it a point of honor to treat
the honest banker well. His disinterested virtue looked well in the
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