| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
land? Is not that so?"
[Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov's tour in
search of a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little
money passed into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he
did not steal, he merely used. And every one of us at times does the
same: one man with regard to Government timber, and another with
regard to a sum belonging to his employer, while a third defrauds his
children for the sake of an actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: "But I wish all that I desire to come to pass and in the
manner that I desire."
--You are mad, you are beside yourself. Know you not that
Freedom is a glorious thing and of great worth? But that what I
desired at random I should wish at random to come to pass, so far
from being noble, may well be exceeding base.
XXX
You must know that it is no easy thing for a principle to
become a man's own, unless each day he maintain it and hear it
maintained, as well as work it out in life.
XXXI
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: compact with the Merciful? Not so! We will write down what he says,
and we will extend to him a length of torment, and we will make him
inherit what he says, and he shall come to us alone. They take other
gods besides God to be their glory. Not so! They shall deny their
worship and shall be opponents of theirs!
Dost thou not see that we have sent the devils against the
misbelievers, to drive them on to sin? but, be not thou hasty with
them. Verily, we will number them a number (of days),-the day when
we will gather the pious to the Merciful as ambassadors, and we will
drive the sinners to hell like (herds) to water! They shall not
possess intercession, save he who has taken a compact with the
The Koran |
