| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which others
brought up in different soils render immortal, making the possessors of it
happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.
PHAEDRUS: Far nobler, certainly.
SOCRATES: And now, Phaedrus, having agreed upon the premises we may decide
about the conclusion.
PHAEDRUS: About what conclusion?
SOCRATES: About Lysias, whom we censured, and his art of writing, and his
discourses, and the rhetorical skill or want of skill which was shown in
them--these are the questions which we sought to determine, and they
brought us to this point. And I think that we are now pretty well informed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: nothing at all of it; they gravely put him off to hear him another
time; all these are seen here in the very dress of the face--that
is, the very countenances which they hold while they listen to the
new doctrine which the Apostle preached to a people at that time
ignorant of it.
The other of the cartoons are exceeding fine but I mention these as
the particular two which are most lively, which strike the fancy
the soonest at first view. It is reported, but with what truth I
know not, that the late French king offered an hundred thousand
LOUIS D'ORS for these pictures; but this, I say, is but a report.
The king brought a great many other fine pieces to England, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: finger on her lips and he is silent. He smokes his pipes and his
cigars in a kiosk fifty feet from the chateau, and airs himself before
he returns to the house. Proud of his subjection, he turns to her,
like a bear drunk on grapes, and says, when anything is proposed, "If
Madame approves." When he comes to his wife's room, with that heavy
step which makes the tiles creak as though they were boards, and she,
not wanting him, calls out: "Don't come in!" he performs a military
volte-face and says humbly: "You will let me know when I can see you?"
--in the very tones with which he shouted to his cuirassiers on the
banks of the Danube: "Men, we must die, and die well, since there's
nothing else we can do!" I have heard him say, speaking of his wife,
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