| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that Alcibiades, son of
Cleinias, was tyrant:--in such a case, I imagine, you would depart full of
joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
ALCIBIADES: And not only I, Socrates, but any one else who should meet
with such luck.
SOCRATES: Yet you would not accept the dominion and lordship of all the
Hellenes and all the barbarians in exchange for your life?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not: for then what use could I make of them?
SOCRATES: And would you accept them if you were likely to use them to a
bad and mischievous end?
ALCIBIADES: I would not.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: there were some lavender, some all black and various shades of tan
and gray. Mrs. Sommers selected a black pair and looked at them
very long and closely. She pretended to be examining their
texture, which the clerk assured her was excellent.
"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she mused aloud. "Well,
I'll take this pair." She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and
waited for her change and for her parcel. What a very small parcel
it was! It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping-bag.
Mrs. Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the
bargain counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an
upper floor into the region of the ladies' waiting-rooms. Here, in
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: freedom, are the sail-makers, the spinners, the ship-owners and the
slave-traders. The slave-traders! The men who live and grow rich
by a traffic in human flesh and blood in the colonies, are conducting
at home a campaign in the sacred name of liberty! Don't you see that
the whole movement is a movement of hucksters and traders and
peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy of the power that lies
in birth alone? The money-changers in Paris who hold the bonds in
the national debt, seeing the parlous financial condition of the
State, tremble at the thought that it may lie in the power of a
single man to cancel the debt by bankruptcy. To secure themselves
they are burrowing underground to overthrow a state and build upon
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