| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: for the sake of smelling. Your nostrils point to earth; but mine are
spread out wide and flat, as if to welcome scents from every quarter.
Crit. But consider, a snubness of the nose, how is that more beautiful
than straightness?[7]
[7] Or, "your straight nose." Cf. Plat. "Theaet." 209 C: Soc. "Or, if
I had further known you not only as having nose and eyes, but as
having a snub nose and prominent eyes, should I have any more
notion of you than myself and others who resemble me?" Cf. also
Aristot. "Pol." v. 9, 7: "A nose which varies from the ideal of
straightness to a hook or snub may still be a good shape and
agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: and change. The continually changing material conditions of life, with
their reaction on the intellectual, emotional, and moral aspects of human
affairs, render our societies the most complex and probably the most mobile
and unsettled which the world has ever seen. As the result of this
rapidity of change and complexity, there must continually exist a large
amount of disco-ordination, and consequently, of suffering.
In a stationary society where generation has succeeded generation for
hundreds, or it may be for thousands, of years, with little or no change in
the material conditions of life, the desires, institutions, and moral
principles of men, their religious, political, domestic, and sexual
institutions, have gradually shaped themselves in accordance with these
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: malicious idea, and, to speak plainly, the intention of putting her
young guardian between honour and pleasure; to regale him so with
love, to surround him with so many little attentions, to pursue him
with such warm glances, that he would be faithless to friendship, to
the advantage of gallantry.
Everything was in perfect trim for the carrying out of her design,
because of the companionship which the Sire de Lavalliere would be
obliged to have with her during his stay in the hotel, and as there is
nothing in the world can turn a woman from her whim, at every turn the
artful jade was ready to catch him in a trap.
At times she would make him remain seated near her by the fire, until
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
