| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: admit of destruction' (Tim). He mentions ten heavenly bodies, including
the sun and moon, the earth and the counter-earth (Greek), and in the midst
of them all he places the central fire, around which they are moving--this
is hidden from the earth by the counter-earth. Of neither is there any
trace in Plato, who makes the earth the centre of his system. Philolaus
magnifies the virtues of particular numbers, especially of the number 10
(Stob. Eclog.), and descants upon odd and even numbers, after the manner of
the later Pythagoreans. It is worthy of remark that these mystical fancies
are nowhere to be found in the writings of Plato, although the importance
of number as a form and also an instrument of thought is ever present to
his mind. Both Philolaus and Plato agree in making the world move in
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: and while he is making game of them, they are at leisure to throttle
him.
So one day early in January 1837, Madame Cardot and her daughter took
a hackney coach and went to the Rue des Martyrs to return the parts of
/Gil Blas/ to Felicie's betrothed, both delighted at the thought of
seeing Lousteau's rooms. These domiciliary visitations are not unusual
in the old citizen class. The porter at the front gate was not in; but
his daughter, on being informed by the worthy lady that she was in the
presence of Monsieur Lousteau's future mother-in-law and bride, handed
over the key of the apartment--all the more readily because Madame
Cardot placed a gold piece in her hand.
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age--mutilating
her person in a most shocking manner. The atrocious woman, in
the paroxysm of her wrath, not content with murdering her victim,
literally mangled her face, and broke her breast bone. Wild,
however, and infuriated as she was, she took the precaution to
cause the slave-girl to be buried; but the facts of the case
coming abroad, very speedily led to the disinterment of the
remains of the murdered slave-girl. A coroner's jury was
assembled, who decided that the girl had come to her death by
severe beating. It was ascertained that the offense for which
this girl was thus hurried out of the world, was this: she had
My Bondage and My Freedom |
