| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: xvii. 1; Cic. "de Leg." ii. 11, a reference which I owe to M.
Eugene Talbot, "Xen." i. 236.
I fancy we should all agree with one another on the point in question,
if we thus approached it. Ask yourself to which type of the two must
he[74] accord, to whom you would entrust a sum of money, make him the
guardian of your children, look to find in him a safe and sure
depositary of any favour?[75] For my part, I am certain that the very
lover addicted to external beauty would himself far sooner have his
precious things entrusted to the keeping of one who has the inward
beauty of the soul.[76]
[74] He (the master-mistress of my passion).
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: ermine, though less injured in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she
resolved to go to her and comfort her. The sight of her son's anguish,
who during the whole preceding night had seemed beside himself, made
the Breton soul of the old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of
her own dignity to revive the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw
in her visit a counterpoise to all the evil done by the little town.
Her opinion, surely more powerful than that of the crowd, ought to
carry with it, she thought, the influence of race. This step, which
the abbe came to announce, made so great a change in Ursula that the
doctor, who was about to ask for a consultation of Parisian doctors,
recovered hope. They placed her on her uncle's sofa, and such was the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.
Besides, since shape examined by our hands
Within the dark is known to be the same
As that by eyes perceived within the light
And lustrous day, both touch and sight must be
By one like cause aroused. So, if we test
A square and get its stimulus on us
Within the dark, within the light what square
Can fall upon our sight, except a square
That images the things? Wherefore it seems
The source of seeing is in images,
Of The Nature of Things |
