| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: SOCRATES: Yes; and I have heard and said many things.
COMPANION: Then, if you have no engagement, suppose that you sit down and
tell me what passed, and my attendant here shall give up his place to you.
SOCRATES: To be sure; and I shall be grateful to you for listening.
COMPANION: Thank you, too, for telling us.
SOCRATES: That is thank you twice over. Listen then:--
Last night, or rather very early this morning, Hippocrates, the son of
Apollodorus and the brother of Phason, gave a tremendous thump with his
staff at my door; some one opened to him, and he came rushing in and bawled
out: Socrates, are you awake or asleep?
I knew his voice, and said: Hippocrates, is that you? and do you bring any
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tanach: Esther 7: 8 Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the couch whereon Esther was. Then said the king: 'Will he even force the queen before me in the house?' As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.
Esther 7: 9 Then said Harbonah, one of the chamberlains that were before the king: 'Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman hath made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman.' And the king said: 'Hang him thereon.'
Esther 7: 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath assuaged.
Esther 8: 1 On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews' enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was unto her.
Esther 8: 2 And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.
Esther 8: 3 And Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his device that he had devised against the Jews.
Esther 8: 4 Then the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre. So Esther arose, and stood before the king.
Esther 8: 5 And she said: 'If it please the king, and if I have found favour in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the l 
The Tanach |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: shooting around here last night, and I heard the balls too. I said
to myself, "That's bad." What gets me is why you should be making
this row up at your end. I should be the first to go.'
It was a thoughtless wonder. The consolation of being second is
not great; the fact, not the order of going - there was our
concern.
Scott talks moderately of looking forward to a time of fighting
'with a feeling that resembled pleasure.' The resemblance seems
rather an identity. In modern life, contact is ended; man grows
impatient of endless manoeuvres; and to approach the fact, to find
ourselves where we can push an advantage home, and stand a fair
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