| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: in their seats, and now the curtain rose. The background was a
growth of enormous, sickly toad-stools, supposed to be clouds. On
the stage stood a girl of eighteen, (the handsomest in Kinesma), in
hoops and satin petticoat, powdered hair, patches, and high-heeled
shoes. She held a fan in one hand, and a bunch of marigolds in the
other. After a deep and graceful curtsy to the company, she came
forward and said,--
"I am the goddess Venus. I have come to Olympus to ask some
questions of Jupiter."
Thunder was heard, and a car rolled upon the stage. Jupiter sat
therein, in a blue coat, yellow vest, ruffled shirt and three-
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: following? 'Have we not found,' they will say, 'a path of thought which
seems to bring us and our argument to the conclusion, that while we are in
the body, and while the soul is infected with the evils of the body, our
desire will not be satisfied? and our desire is of the truth. For the body
is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of
food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the
search after true being: it fills us full of loves, and lusts, and fears,
and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and in fact, as men say,
takes away from us the power of thinking at all. Whence come wars, and
fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the
body? wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: believe that even Lampido, the daughter of Leotychides, the wife of
Archidamus and mother of Agis, all of whom were kings, would have the same
feeling; if, in your present uneducated state, you were to turn your
thoughts against her son, she too would be equally astonished. But how
disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required
in us as our enemies' wives and mothers have of the qualities which are
required in their assailants! O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear
the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'--not the men whom you think, but
these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and
skill. And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in
becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire
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