| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Cried: "Of this food ye shall have scarcity."
Then said: "More thoughtful Mary was of making
The marriage feast complete and honourable,
Than of her mouth which now for you responds;
And for their drink the ancient Roman women
With water were content; and Daniel
Disparaged food, and understanding won.
The primal age was beautiful as gold;
Acorns it made with hunger savorous,
And nectar every rivulet with thirst.
Honey and locusts were the aliments
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: issue from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things)
Desire saw Ursula on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped
short amazed at her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the
relations who accompanied him.
In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she did
with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward or
difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does
truly reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that
Ursula's attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was
dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: becoming and having become.
THEAETETUS: Yes, truly.
SOCRATES: These three axioms, if I am not mistaken, are fighting with one
another in our minds in the case of the dice, or, again, in such a case as
this--if I were to say that I, who am of a certain height and taller than
you, may within a year, without gaining or losing in height, be not so
tall--not that I should have lost, but that you would have increased. In
such a case, I am afterwards what I once was not, and yet I have not
become; for I could not have become without becoming, neither could I have
become less without losing somewhat of my height; and I could give you ten
thousand examples of similar contradictions, if we admit them at all. I
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