| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: all the rest of his troops deserted him; whereat the monarch took
flight and retired in exile to Sidon in Phoenicia, leaving the
Egyptians, split in faction, to choose to themselves a pair of
kings.[39] Thereupon Agesilaus took his decision. If he helped
neither, it meant that neither would pay the service-money due to his
Hellenes, that neither would provide a market, and that, whichever of
the two conquered in the end, Sparta would be equally detested. But if
he threw in his lot with one of them, that one would in all likelihood
in return for the kindness prove a friend. Accordingly he chose
between the two that one who seemed to be the truer partisan of
Hellas, and with him marched against the enemy of Hellas and conquered
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: through the darkness, while the poor serving-man's flesh quaked
to hear the wild beasts and the wolves growling and howling
around them.
But all the while the angel--his travelling companion--said never
a word; he seemed to doubt nothing nor fear nothing, but trudged
straight ahead until, by-and-by, they saw a light twinkling far
away, and, when they came to it, they found a gloomy stone house,
as ugly as eyes ever looked upon. Up stepped the servant's
comrade and knocked upon the door--rap! tap! tap! By-and-by it
was opened a crack, and there stood an ugly old woman, blear-eyed
and crooked and gnarled as a winter twig. But the heart within
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: the lines that were being drawn by talk and excitement round her mouth
and eyes, but he did not pity her; looking into those bright, rather hard,
and very courageous eyes, he saw that she did not pity herself,
or feel any desire to exchange her own life for the more refined
and orderly lives of people like himself and St. John, although,
as the years went by, the fight would become harder and harder.
Perhaps, though, she would settle down; perhaps, after all,
she would marry Perrott. While his mind was half occupied with
what she was saying, he thought of her probable destiny, the light
clouds of tobacco smoke serving to obscure his face from her eyes.
Terence smoked and Arthur smoked and Evelyn smoked, so that the air
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