| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: I doubt whether Raphael studied the minutest intricacies of the
mechanism of the human body as thoroughly as the draughtsmen of
our own time. He did not attach the same importance to rigorous
accuracy on this point as they do, because he aspired to surpass
nature. He sought to make of man something which should be
superior to man, and to embellish beauty's self. David and his
scholars were, on the contrary, as good anatomists as they were
good painters. They wonderfully depicted the models which they
had before their eyes, but they rarely imagined anything beyond
them: they followed nature with fidelity: whilst Raphael sought
for something better than nature. They have left us an exact
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: the indifferent, for that would be 'like the friend of like,' but) of the
good, or rather of the beautiful?
But why should the indifferent have this attachment to the beautiful or
good? There are circumstances under which such an attachment would be
natural. Suppose the indifferent, say the human body, to be desirous of
getting rid of some evil, such as disease, which is not essential but only
accidental to it (for if the evil were essential the body would cease to be
indifferent, and would become evil)--in such a case the indifferent becomes
a friend of the good for the sake of getting rid of the evil. In this
intermediate 'indifferent' position the philosopher or lover of wisdom
stands: he is not wise, and yet not unwise, but he has ignorance
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: forms had not the virgin delicacy of those of Etienne. Certainly the
poor physician had never dreamed of such a result; chance had brought
it forward and seemed to ordain it. But, under, the reign of Louis
XIII., to dare to lead a Duc d'Herouville to marry the daughter of a
bonesetter!
And yet, from this marriage alone was it likely that the lineage
imperiously demanded by the old duke would result. Nature had destined
these two rare beings for each other; God had brought them together by
a marvellous arrangement of events, while, at the same time, human
ideas and laws placed insuperable barriers between them. Though the
old man thought he saw in this the finger of God, and although he had
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