| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: The parallel, as Socrates would say, is not perfect, but agrees in as far
as the mind in either case is regarded as dependent on something above and
beyond herself. The analogy may even be pressed a step further: 'We are
more certain of our ideas of truth and right than we are of the existence
of God, and are led on in the order of thought from one to the other.' Or
more correctly: 'The existence of right and truth is the existence of God,
and can never for a moment be separated from Him.'
19. The main argument of the Phaedo is derived from the existence of
eternal ideas of which the soul is a partaker; the other argument of the
alternation of opposites is replaced by this. And there have not been
wanting philosophers of the idealist school who have imagined that the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: remark, 'It is a fine day, sir!'
"Whereupon the retired official responded with, 'Austerlitz weather,
sir. I was there myself--I was wounded indeed, I won my Cross on that
glorious day.'
"And so from one thing to another the two drifted wrecks of the Empire
struck up an acquaintance. Little Croizeau was attached to the Empire
through his connection with Napoleon's sisters. He had been their
coach-builder, and had frequently dunned them for money; so he gave
out that he 'had had relations with the Imperial family.' Maxime, duly
informed by Antonia of the 'nice old man's' proposals (for so the aunt
called Croizeau), wished to see him. Cerizet's declaration of war had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: Closing his book he stole a glance at Coral Hicks's profile,
thrown back against the cushions of the deck-chair at his side.
There was something harsh and bracing in her blunt primitive
build, in the projection of the black eyebrows that nearly met
over her thick straight nose, and the faint barely visible black
down on her upper lip. Some miracle of will-power, combined
with all the artifices that wealth can buy, had turned the fat
sallow girl he remembered into this commanding young woman,
almost handsome at times indisputably handsome--in her big
authoritative way. Watching the arrogant lines of her profile
against the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that was
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