| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife
laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you
were in a fit of laughter, would go some way towards a
dissolution of the marriage.
I know a woman who, from some distaste or disability,
could never so much as understand the meaning of the word
POLITICS, and has given up trying to distinguish Whigs from
Tories; but take her on her own politics, ask her about other
men or women and the chicanery of everyday existence - the
rubs, the tricks, the vanities on which life turns - and you
will not find many more shrewd, trenchant, and humorous. Nay,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: not having any apparent connection with visible objects, I was unable
to discover any clue by which I could unravel the mystery of their reference.
By great application, however, and after having remained during the space
of several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names that
were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and
applied the words, `fire,' `milk,' `bread,' and `wood.' I learned also the
names of the cottagers themselves. The youth and his companion had each
of them several names, but the old man had only one, which was `father.'
The girl was called `sister' or `Agatha,' and the youth `Felix,' `brother,'
or `son.' I cannot describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas
appropriated to each of these sounds and was able to pronounce them.
Frankenstein |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: motive, however, of writing, was not the ambition of an elder man, but the
pugnacity of a young one. This you do not seem to see, Socrates; though in
other respects, as I was saying, your notion is a very just one.
I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your account. But tell me,
Zeno, do you not further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself,
and another idea of unlikeness, which is the opposite of likeness, and that
in these two, you and I and all other things to which we apply the term
many, participate--things which participate in likeness become in that
degree and manner like; and so far as they participate in unlikeness become
in that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they
participate in both? And may not all things partake of both opposites, and
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