| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: motive.
MON CHER ET TRES-CHARITABLE MONSIEUR. - There's no opposing this,
said I.
MILORD ANGLOIS - the very sound was worth the money; - so I gave MY
LAST SOUS FOR IT. But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked
a PAUVRE HONTEUX, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and
who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could have ask'd one
for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle,
and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days.
- Good God! said I - and I have not one single sous left to give
him. - But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: see his friend at a moment when Marie-Gaston's insanity, which for
several days had been in the stages of mania, was yielding to the care
of the doctor, and showed some symptoms of a probable recovery. As
soon as Sallenauve was alone with the organist, he inquired the reason
that led him to follow him; and he heard, with some emotion, the news
of the intrigues which Maxime de Trailles had apparently organized
against him. Returning to his original suspicions, he said to Jacques
Bricheteau,--
"Are you really sure that that person who declared himself my father
was the Marquis de Sallenauve, and that I am truly his son?"
"Mother Marie-des-Anges and Achille Pigoult, by whom I was warned of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: should like to avoid the brunt of their argument. Shall I tell you how I
mean to escape from them? And you shall be the partner of my flight.
PROTARCHUS: How?
SOCRATES: To them we will say: 'Good; but are we, or living things in
general, always conscious of what happens to us--for example, of our
growth, or the like? Are we not, on the contrary, almost wholly
unconscious of this and similar phenomena?' You must answer for them.
PROTARCHUS: The latter alternative is the true one.
SOCRATES: Then we were not right in saying, just now, that motions going
up and down cause pleasures and pains?
PROTARCHUS: True.
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