| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: divine; he needs neither property nor health; he is a God realising
his perfection through pain.
The evolution of man is slow. The injustice of men is great. It
was necessary that pain should be put forward as a mode of self-
realisation. Even now, in some places in the world, the message of
Christ is necessary. No one who lived in modern Russia could
possibly realise his perfection except by pain. A few Russian
artists have realised themselves in Art; in a fiction that is
mediaeval in character, because its dominant note is the
realisation of men through suffering. But for those who are not
artists, and to whom there is no mode of life but the actual life
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: and said: That is an example, clumsy and tedious I admit, of the sort of
exhortations which I would have you give; and I hope that one of you will
set forth what I have been saying in a more artistic style: or at least
take up the enquiry where I left off, and proceed to show the youth whether
he should have all knowledge; or whether there is one sort of knowledge
only which will make him good and happy, and what that is. For, as I was
saying at first, the improvement of this young man in virtue and wisdom is
a matter which we have very much at heart.
Thus I spoke, Crito, and was all attention to what was coming. I wanted to
see how they would approach the question, and where they would start in
their exhortation to the young man that he should practise wisdom and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: meditation was stormy and solemn. The next day was the fatal day, the
day for the marriage. But Juana could still remain free. Free, she
knew how far her misery would go; married, she was ignorant of where
it went or what it might bring her.
Religion triumphed. Dona Lagounia stayed beside her child and prayed
and watched as she would have prayed and watched beside the dying.
"God wills it," she said to Juana.
Nature gives to woman alternately a strength which enables her to
suffer and a weakness which leads her to resignation. Juana resigned
herself; and without restriction. She determined to obey her mother's
prayer, and cross the desert of life to reach God's heaven, knowing
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