| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: when she is unable to follow, and fails to behold the truth, and through
some ill-hap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, and
her wings fall from her and she drops to the ground, then the law ordains
that this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any other animal,
but only into man; and the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to
the birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature;
that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be some righteous king
or warrior chief; the soul which is of the third class shall be a
politician, or economist, or trader; the fourth shall be a lover of
gymnastic toils, or a physician; the fifth shall lead the life of a prophet
or hierophant; to the sixth the character of poet or some other imitative
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: he would fall!--for there are very few birds that fly
as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce,
two or three times, on his way down, but this would be
no advantage to him. I would as soon taking an airing
on the slant of a rainbow as in such a front yard.
I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would be about
the same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce.
I could not see how the peasants got up to that chalet--
the region seemed too steep for anything but a balloon.
As we strolled on, climbing up higher and higher, we were
continually bringing neighboring peaks into view and lofty
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so thin a
glimmer could control and disperse such solid blackness. When Jones
and I entered we found a little company of our acquaintances seated
together at the triangular foremost table. A more forlorn party, in
more dismal circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion
here in the ship's nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often
overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round
and round and tossed the shadows in masses. The air was hot, but it
struck a chill from its foetor.
From all round in the dark bunks, the scarcely human noises of the
sick joined into a kind of farmyard chorus. In the midst, these five
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