| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
"And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn."
My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac.
"Perhaps you can write to me."
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This is as I had reckoned.
Prufrock/Other Observations |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: great force of mind; he hardly knows where to begin in the search after
truth. On every side he is met by the world, which is not an abstraction
of theologians, but the most real of all things, being another name for
ourselves when regarded collectively and subjected to the influences of
society.
Then comes Socrates, impressed as no other man ever was, with the unreality
and untruthfulness of popular opinion, and tells mankind that they must be
and not seem. How are they to be? At any rate they must have the spirit
and desire to be. If they are ignorant, they must acknowledge their
ignorance to themselves; if they are conscious of doing evil, they must
learn to do well; if they are weak, and have nothing in them which they can
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: old man, but he will last a long time yet--he draws good pay; when he
dies his widow would have a pension of six thousand francs. On such an
income I would undertake to maintain you all. Use your influence over
the good man to get him to marry me. It is not for the sake of being
Madame la Marechale; I value such nonsense at no more than I value
Madame Marneffe's conscience; but you will all have bread. I see that
Hortense must be wanting it, since you give her yours."
The Marshal now came in; he had made such haste, that he was mopping
his forehead with his bandana.
"I have given Mariette two thousand francs," he whispered to his
sister-in-law.
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