| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: That screens itself with knowledge, I discern
The searching rays of wisdom that reach through
The mist of shame's infirm credulity,
And infinitely wonder if hard words
Like mine have any message for the dead.
XV
I grant you friendship is a royal thing,
But none shall ever know that royalty
For what it is till he has realized
His best friend in himself. 'T is then, perforce,
That man's unfettered faith indemnifies
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: do, and once perhaps thought that they were doing, a great deal more.
The philosophies of Epicurus or Hume give no adequate or dignified
conception of the mind. There is no organic unity in a succession of
feeling or sensations; no comprehensiveness in an infinity of separate
actions. The individual never reflects upon himself as a whole; he can
hardly regard one act or part of his life as the cause or effect of any
other act or part. Whether in practice or speculation, he is to himself
only in successive instants. To such thinkers, whether in ancient or in
modern times, the mind is only the poor recipient of impressions--not the
heir of all the ages, or connected with all other minds. It begins again
with its own modicum of experience having only such vague conceptions of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's
misconduct has been all the more reprehensible."
"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?"
"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a
letter which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your
bosom. The incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the
Marquess Zanipolo, who, in consequence, has already repudiated
his unhappy bride."
Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his
Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady
on so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the
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