| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: foundations, have examined, deduced, and connected the logical
sequence?
Six months after the confiscation of the /Treatise on the Will/ I left
school. Our parting was unexpected. My mother, alarmed by a feverish
attack which for some months I had been unable to shake off, while my
inactive life induced symptoms of /coma/, carried me off at four or
five hours' notice. The announcement of my departure reduced Lambert
to dreadful dejection.
"Shall I ever seen you again?" said he in his gentle voice, as he
clasped me in his arms. "You will live," he went on, "but I shall die.
If I can, I will come back to you."
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: (Compare Symposium; Laws).
Leaving the Greek or ancient point of view, we may regard the question in a
more general way. Friendship is the union of two persons in mutual
affection and remembrance of one another. The friend can do for his friend
what he cannot do for himself. He can give him counsel in time of
difficulty; he can teach him 'to see himself as others see him'; he can
stand by him, when all the world are against him; he can gladden and
enlighten him by his presence; he 'can divide his sorrows,' he can 'double
his joys;' he can anticipate his wants. He will discover ways of helping
him without creating a sense of his own superiority; he will find out his
mental trials, but only that he may minister to them. Among true friends
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to
succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium,
struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror. A mist
dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene
of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of
evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the
topmost peg. I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance
doubly sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the
lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on
my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future, and yet
still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
