| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: may not unfrequently keep them in his mind for a considerable time.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Well, now, I wonder whether you would agree in my explanation of
this phenomenon.
PROTARCHUS: What is your explanation?
SOCRATES: I think that the soul at such times is like a book.
PROTARCHUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Memory and perception meet, and they and their attendant
feelings seem to almost to write down words in the soul, and when the
inscribing feeling writes truly, then true opinion and true propositions
which are the expressions of opinion come into our souls--but when the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: expanse of the desert. Realizing the danger of this cruel mirage, he
went down the opposite side of the hill to that by which he had come
up the day before. The remains of a rug showed that this place of
refuge had at one time been inhabited; at a short distance he saw some
palm trees full of dates. Then the instinct which binds us to life
awoke again in his heart. He hoped to live long enough to await the
passing of some Maugrabins, or perhaps he might hear the sound of
cannon; for at this time Bonaparte was traversing Egypt.
This thought gave him new life. The palm tree seemed to bend with the
weight of the ripe fruit. He shook some of it down. When he tasted
this unhoped-for manna, he felt sure that the palms had been
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: professed patriotism, but he knew not what it was to feel honest
indignation; and pretended to be an advocate for liberty, when,
with as little affection for the human race as for individuals, he
thought of nothing but his own gratification. He was just such a
citizen, as a father. The sums he adroitly obtained by a violation
of the laws of his country, as well as those of humanity, he would
allow a mistress to squander; though she was, with the same _sang_
_froid_, consigned, as were his children, to poverty, when another
proved more attractive.
"On various pretences, his friend continued to visit me; and,
observing my want of money, he tried to induce me to accept of
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