| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: harmony, beauty, and the like. The goddess of beauty saw the universal
wantonness of all things, and gave law and order to be the salvation of the
soul. But no effect can be generated without a cause, and therefore there
must be a fourth class, which is the cause of generation; for the cause or
agent is not the same as the patient or effect.
And now, having obtained our classes, we may determine in which our
conqueror life is to be placed: Clearly in the third or mixed class, in
which the finite gives law to the infinite. And in which is pleasure to
find a place? As clearly in the infinite or indefinite, which alone, as
Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the infinite with the superlative),
gives to pleasure the character of the absolute good. Yes, retorts
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: crowd. I can't stand it. I ain't going down there, Tom."
"Oh, bother! It ain't anything. I don't mind it
a bit. I'll take care of you."
Sid appeared.
"Tom," said he, "auntie has been waiting for you
all the afternoon. Mary got your Sunday clothes
ready, and everybody's been fretting about you. Say
-- ain't this grease and clay, on your clothes?"
"Now, Mr. Siddy, you jist 'tend to your own business.
What's all this blow-out about, anyway?"
"It's one of the widow's parties that she's always
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: This tale was made as sharply incisive as the blow of an axe.
"I shall not go to Batz," said Pauline, when we came to the upper
shore of the lake.
We returned to Croisic by the salt marshes, through the labyrinth of
which we were guided by our fisherman, now as silent as ourselves. The
inclination of our souls was changed. We were both plunged into gloomy
reflections, saddened by the recital of a drama which explained the
sudden presentiment which had seized us on seeing Cambremer. Each of
us had enough knowledge of life to divine all that our guide had not
told of that triple existence. The anguish of those three beings rose
up before us as if we had seen it in a drama, culminating in that of
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