| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Letters of Two Brides
The Seamy Side of History
A Prince of Bohemia
A Man of Business
The Unconscious Humorists
Nathan, Madame Raoul
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Government Clerks
A Bachelor's Establishment
 The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: marvellously under this new discipline, took good care that Chita
should practice whenever the mornings were not too cold, or the
water too rough.
With the first thrill of delight at finding herself able to glide
over the water unassisted, the child's superstitious terror of
the sea passed away. Even for the adult there are few physical
joys keener than the exultation of the swimmer;--how much greater
the same glee as newly felt by an imaginative child,--a child,
whose vivid fancy can lend unutterable value to the most
insignificant trifles, can transform a weed-patch to an Eden! ...
Of her own accord she would ask for her morning bath, as soon as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: which Plato is more firmly convinced than of the priority of the soul to
the body, both in the universe and in man. So inconsistent are the forms
in which he describes the works which no tongue can utter--his language, as
he himself says, partaking of his own uncertainty about the things of which
he is speaking.
We may remark in passing, that the Platonic compared with the Jewish
description of the process of creation has less of freedom or spontaneity.
The Creator in Plato is still subject to a remnant of necessity which he
cannot wholly overcome. When his work is accomplished he remains in his
own nature. Plato is more sensible than the Hebrew prophet of the
existence of evil, which he seeks to put as far as possible out of the way
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