| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: his red and inflamed features surmounted by the
dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly
swinging rifle and banging accouterments, he
looked to be an insane soldier.
As the regiment swung from its position out
into a cleared space the woods and thickets be-
fore it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward
it from many directions. The forest made a tre-
mendous objection.
The line lurched straight for a moment. Then
the right wing swung forward; it in turn was
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: cut off the head of the king your father's brother-in-law,
and to contract an alliance with a parliament which they
call yonder the Rump Parliament; it was unbecoming, I
acknowledge, but it was not unskillful from a political
point of view, since, thanks to that treaty, I saved your
majesty, then a minor, the trouble and danger of a foreign
war, which the Fronde -- you remember the Fronde sire?" --
the young king hung his head -- "which the Fronde might have
fatally complicated. And thus I prove to your majesty that
to change our plan now; without warning our allies, would be
at once unskillful and dishonest. We should make war with
Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: You monster! I said; this is what Critias, or some philosopher has told
you.
Some one else, then, said Critias; for certainly I have not.
But what matter, said Charmides, from whom I heard this?
No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words, but
whether they are true or not.
There you are in the right, Socrates, he replied.
To be sure, I said; yet I doubt whether we shall ever be able to discover
their truth or falsehood; for they are a kind of riddle.
What makes you think so? he said.
Because, I said, he who uttered them seems to me to have meant one thing,
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