| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: rather than awaiting his enemy's attack, and his intention to carry on
the war at the expense of Persia rather than that of Hellas; but it
was the perfection of policy, they felt, so to change the arena of
battle, with Asia as the prize of victory instead of Hellas. If we
pass on to the moment when he had received his army and set sail, I
can conceive no clearer exposition of his generalship than the bare
narration of his exploits.
The scene is Asia, and this his first achievement. Tissaphernes had
sworn an oath to Agesilaus on this wise: if Agesilaus would grant him
an armistice until the return of certain ambassadors whom he would
send to the king, he (Tissaphernes) would do his utmost to procure the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: certainty of the worst. He raised his head, and, as he did so,
violently started. High upon the wall there was the figure of a
savage hunter woven in the tapestry. With one hand he held a horn
to his mouth; in the other he brandished a stout spear. His face
was dark, for he was meant to represent an African.
Now, here was what had startled Richard Shelton. The sun had moved
away from the hall windows, and at the same time the fire had
blazed up high on the wide hearth, and shed a changeful glow upon
the roof and hangings. In this light the figure of the black
hunter had winked at him with a white eyelid.
He continued staring at the eye. The light shone upon it like a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: 'For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what
good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends
will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their
property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the
neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are
well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their
government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an
evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the
minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he
who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the
young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered
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