| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives
alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at
creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness
recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts
it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for
oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at
all. It is grossly selfish to require of ones neighbour that he
should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why
should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently.
If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind
from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: mental /macedoine/[*], half jesting, half funereal. With my left foot
I kept time to the music, and the other felt as if it were in a tomb.
My leg was, in fact, frozen by one of those draughts which congeal one
half of the body while the other suffers from the intense heat of the
salons--a state of things not unusual at balls.
[*] /Macedoine/, in the sense in which it is here used, is a game, or
rather a series of games, of cards, each player, when it is his
turn to deal, selecting the game to be played.
"Monsieur de Lanty has not owned this house very long, has he?"
"Oh, yes! It is nearly ten years since the Marechal de Carigliano sold
it to him."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: '"Show me the god," I cried, "or I will surely slay thee." And I
touched his hand, and it became withered.
'And the priest besought me, saying, "Let my lord heal his servant,
and I will show him the god."
'So I breathed with my breath upon his hand, and it became whole
again, and he trembled and led me into the second chamber, and I
saw an idol standing on a lotus of jade hung with great emeralds.
It was carved out of ivory, and in stature was twice the stature of
a man. On its forehead was a chrysolite, and its breasts were
smeared with myrrh and cinnamon. In one hand it held a crooked
sceptre of jade, and in the other a round crystal. It ware buskins
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