| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: gentility.
Nay, Dionysodorus, I said, do not be rough; good words, if you please; in
the way of religion I have altars and temples, domestic and ancestral, and
all that other Athenians have.
And have not other Athenians, he said, an ancestral Zeus?
That name, I said, is not to be found among the Ionians, whether colonists
or citizens of Athens; an ancestral Apollo there is, who is the father of
Ion, and a family Zeus, and a Zeus guardian of the phratry, and an Athene
guardian of the phratry. But the name of ancestral Zeus is unknown to us.
No matter, said Dionysodorus, for you admit that you have Apollo, Zeus, and
Athene.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: The corporal did not approve of the orders, but most cheerfully obeyed
them. The first was not an act of his will--the second was; so he put on
his Montero-cap, and went as fast as his lame knee would let him. My uncle
Toby returned into the parlour, and sat himself down again upon the sopha.
--You shall lay your finger upon the place--said my uncle Toby.--I will not
touch it, however, quoth Mrs. Wadman to herself.
This requires a second translation:--it shews what little knowledge is got
by mere words--we must go up to the first springs.
Now in order to clear up the mist which hangs upon these three pages, I
must endeavour to be as clear as possible myself.
Rub your hands thrice across your foreheads--blow your noses--cleanse your
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the
spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me
a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went
to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox
was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the
sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness,
or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure
where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little
action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that
therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day
to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I
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