| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: "As for myself, Inkoosi," added Saduko, "I only did my duty. How could
I have held up my head again if the bull had killed you while I walked
away alive? Why, the very girls would have mocked at me. But, oh, his
skin was tough. I thought that assegai would never get through it."
Observe the difference between these two men's characters. The one,
although no hero in daily life, imperils himself from sheer, dog-like
fidelity to a master who had given him many hard words and sometimes a
flogging in punishment for drunkenness, and the other to gratify his
pride, also perhaps because my death would have interfered with his
plans and ambitions in which I had a part to play. No, that is a hard
saying; still, there is no doubt that Saduko always first took his own
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!
O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: lingered on the level bottoms, refused to spring from his lair,
waiting for the moment when the Abydenian division in the van was
safely landed in the plain of Cremaste, at the point where the gold
mines stand; the main column following on the downward slope, and
Anaxibius with his Laconians just beginning the descent. At that
instant Iphicrates set his ambuscade in motion, and dashed against the
Spartan at full speed. The latter quickly discerned that there was no
hope of escape as he scanned the long straggling line of his
attenuated column. The troops in advance, he was persuaded, would
never be able to come back to his aid up the face of that acclivity;
besides which, he observed the utter bewilderment of the whole body at
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