| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Call El Dorado. But to nobler sights
Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed,
Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight
Had bred; then purged with euphrasy and rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see;
And from the well of life three drops instilled.
So deep the power of these ingredients pierced,
Even to the inmost seat of mental sight,
That Adam, now enforced to close his eyes,
Sunk down, and all his spirits became entranced;
But him the gentle Angel by the hand
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: crossed and this door they gingerly opened, revealing to their
astonished gaze the four warriors at the jetan table. For a
moment they were on the verge of flight, for though they knew
what they were, coming as they did upon them in this mysterious
and haunted suite, they were as startled as though they had
beheld the very ghosts of the departed. But they presently
regained their courage sufficiently to cross this chamber too and
enter the short passageway that led to the ancient sleeping
apartment of O-Mai the Cruel. They did not know that this awful
chamber lay just before them, or it were doubtful that they would
have proceeded farther; but they saw that those they sought had
The Chessmen of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: allowing or admitting of smallness, be changed by that; even as I, having
received and admitted smallness when compared with Simmias, remain just as
I was, and am the same small person. And as the idea of greatness cannot
condescend ever to be or become small, in like manner the smallness in us
cannot be or become great; nor can any other opposite which remains the
same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes
in the change.
That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion.
Hereupon one of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of
them, said: In heaven's name, is not this the direct contrary of what was
admitted before--that out of the greater came the less and out of the less
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