| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: They thrust their arms over the chains shouting out that the road had
been left too wide for him; and he passed along, felt, pricked, and
slashed by all those fingers; when he reached the end of one street
another appeared; several times he flung himself to one side to bite
them; they speedily dispersed, the chains held him back, and the crowd
burst out laughing.
A child rent his ear; a young girl, hiding the point of a spindle in
her sleeve, split his cheek; they tore handfuls of hair from him and
strips of flesh; others smeared his face with sponges steeped in filth
and fastened upon sticks. A stream of blood started from the right
side of his neck, frenzy immediately set in. This last Barbarian was
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: with heart and soul you might defend the wives and little ones of
the Trojans from the fierce Achaeans. For this do I oppress my
people with your food and the presents that make you rich.
Therefore turn, and charge at the foe, to stand or fall as is the
game of war; whoever shall bring Patroclus, dead though he be,
into the hands of the Trojans, and shall make Ajax give way
before him, I will give him one half of the spoils while I keep
the other. He will thus share like honour with myself."
When he had thus spoken they charged full weight upon the Danaans
with their spears held out before them, and the hopes of each ran
high that he should force Ajax son of Telamon to yield up the
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: of cheering and the march of many feet beneath his window.
He gazed out. With colours flying, and with music sounding,
Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. But his banners were
dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners were marched within
his ranks. The old man knew it all. That martial and
triumphant strain was the death-knell of his friends and of
their cause, the rust-hued spots upon the flags were the
tokens of their courage and their death, and the prisoners
were the miserable remnant spared from death in battle to die
upon the scaffold. Poor old man! he had outlived all joy.
Had he lived longer he would have seen increasing torment and
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