| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: existed in a previous state, then it will exist in a future state, for a
law of alternation pervades all things.' And, 'If the ideas exist, then
the soul exists; if not, not.' It is to be observed, both in the Meno and
the Phaedo, that Socrates expresses himself with diffidence. He speaks in
the Phaedo of the words with which he has comforted himself and his
friends, and will not be too confident that the description which he has
given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true, but he 'ventures to
think that something of the kind is true.' And in the Meno, after dwelling
upon the immortality of the soul, he adds, 'Of some things which I have
said I am not altogether confident' (compare Apology; Gorgias). From this
class of uncertainties he exempts the difference between truth and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: insects buzzed incessantly among the lush vegetation. And far
out at sea, unspied and unknown monsters spouted mountainous columns
of foam into the vaporous sky. Once I was taken under the ocean
in a gigantic submarine vessel with searchlights, and glimpsed
some living horrors of awesome magnitude. I saw also the ruins
of incredible sunken cities, and the wealth of crinoid, brachiopod,
coral, and ichthyic life which everywhere abounded.
Of the physiology,
psychology, folkways, and detailed history of the Great Race my
visions preserved but little information, and many of the scattered
points I here set down were gleaned from my study of old legends
Shadow out of Time |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: burying-place, and be laid in Westminster Abbey, that I know not;
but it is certain that the present Duke has chosen to have his
family laid here with their ancestors, and to that end has caused
the corpse of his son, the Lord Percy, as above, and one of his
daughters, who had been buried in the Abbey, to be removed and
brought down to this vault, which lies in that they call the Virgin
Mary's Chapel, behind the altar. There is, as above, a noble
monument for a late Duke and Duchess of Somerset in the place
already, with their portraits at full-length, their heads lying
upon cushions, the whole perfectly well wrought in fine polished
Italian marble, and their sons kneeling by them. Those I suppose
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