| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: shrubs--I will not venture to speak of the bedding-out plants--have
they also blossomed in the bosom of the wife? Does Louis continue his
policy of madrigals? Do you enter into each other's thoughts? I wonder
whether your little runlet of wedding peace is better than the raging
torrent of my love! Has my sweet lady professor taken offence? I
cannot believe it; and if it were so, I should send Felipe off at
once, post-haste, to fling himself at her knees and bring back to me
my pardon or her head. Sweet love, my life here is a splendid success,
and I want to know how it fares with life in Provence. We have just
increased our family by the addition of a Spaniard with the complexion
of a Havana cigar, and your congratulations still tarry.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: reputation; but the truth is, that the outer form of him only is in the
city: his mind, disdaining the littlenesses and nothingnesses of human
things, is 'flying all abroad' as Pindar says, measuring earth and heaven
and the things which are under and on the earth and above the heaven,
interrogating the whole nature of each and all in their entirety, but not
condescending to anything which is within reach.
THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the jest which the
clever witty Thracian handmaid is said to have made about Thales, when he
fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was
so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the Sea.
Pour some salt water over the floor -
Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
THAT'S very like the Sea.
Beat a dog till it howls outright -
Cruel, but all very well for a spree:
Suppose that he did so day and night,
THAT would be like the Sea.
I had a vision of nursery-maids;
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