| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: Every now and then a long low note from the serpent,
which was the chief wind instrument played at these times,
advanced further into the heath than the thin treble part,
and reached their ears alone; and next a more than usual
loud tread from a dancer would come the same way.
With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became
pieced together, and were found to be the salient points
of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."
He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with?
Perhaps some unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture,
was by the most subtle of lures sealing his fate this
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: the truth. Now I, Hippias, originally asked you the question, because I
was in doubt as to which of the two heroes was intended by the poet to be
the best, and because I thought that both of them were the best, and that
it would be difficult to decide which was the better of them, not only in
respect of truth and falsehood, but of virtue generally, for even in this
matter of speaking the truth they are much upon a par.
HIPPIAS: There you are wrong, Socrates; for in so far as Achilles speaks
falsely, the falsehood is obviously unintentional. He is compelled against
his will to remain and rescue the army in their misfortune. But when
Odysseus speaks falsely he is voluntarily and intentionally false.
SOCRATES: You, sweet Hippias, like Odysseus, are a deceiver yourself.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: Cathuria lies, but which wise dreamers well know are the gates
of a monstrous cataract wherein the oceans of earth's dreamland
drop wholly to abysmal nothingness and shoot through the empty
spaces toward other worlds and other stars and the awful voids
outside the ordered universe where the daemon sultan Azathoth
gnaws hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and the hellish
dancing of the Other Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless,
with their soul and messenger Nyarlathotep.
Meanwhile the three
sardonic merchants would give no word of their intent, though
Carter well knew that they must be leagued with those who wished
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
