| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,
No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,
The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,
And from the copse left desolate and bare
Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,
Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody
So sad, that one might think a human heart
Brake in each separate note, a quality
Which music sometimes has, being the Art
Which is most nigh to tears and memory;
Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: either, and if they have self-control, they pass their lives in the
greatest happiness which is attainable by man--they continue masters of
themselves, and conquer in one of the three heavenly victories. But if
they choose the lower life of ambition they may still have a happy destiny,
though inferior, because they have not the approval of the whole soul. At
last they leave the body and proceed on their pilgrim's progress, and those
who have once begun can never go back. When the time comes they receive
their wings and fly away, and the lovers have the same wings.
Socrates concludes:--
These are the blessings of love, and thus have I made my recantation in
finer language than before: I did so in order to please Phaedrus. If I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: American flirt should be "talked about" by low-minded menials.
These people, a day or two later, had serious information to give:
the little American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, when the
rumor came to him, immediately went to the hotel for more news.
He found that two or three charitable friends had preceded him,
and that they were being entertained in Mrs. Miller's salon by Randolph.
"It's going round at night," said Randolph--"that's
what made her sick. She's always going round at night.
I shouldn't think she'd want to, it's so plaguy dark.
You can't see anything here at night, except when there's a moon.
In America there's always a moon!" Mrs. Miller was invisible;
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