| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: Laporte went out; the queen remained standing near the
hangings, whilst D'Artagnan glided behind the curtains.
Then the heavy and collected steps of a multitude of men
were heard, and the queen herself raised the tapestry
hangings and put her finger on her lips.
On seeing the queen, the men stopped short, respectfully.
"Enter, gentlemen, enter," said the queen.
There was then amongst that crowd a moment's hesitation,
which looked like shame. They had expected resistance, they
had expected to be thwarted, to have to force the gates, to
overturn the guards. The gates had opened of themselves, and
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the First Alcibiades,
which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has the greatest merit, and
is somewhat longer than any of them, though not verified by the testimony
of Aristotle, and in many respects at variance with the Symposium in the
description of the relations of Socrates and Alcibiades. Like the Lesser
Hippias and the Menexenus, it is to be compared to the earlier writings of
Plato. The motive of the piece may, perhaps, be found in that passage of
the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by
the words of Socrates. For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher
has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At
the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: She looked straight into my eyes.
"I hate you," she said, and then, as I was about to beg
for a fair hearing she pointed over my shoulder.
"The thipdar comes," she said, and I turned again to meet
the reptile.
So this was a thipdar. I might have known it. The cruel
bloodhound of the Mahars. The long-extinct pterodactyl
of the outer world. But this time I met it with a weapon it
never had faced before. I had selected my longest arrow,
and with all my strength had bent the bow until the very
tip of the shaft rested upon the thumb of my left hand,
At the Earth's Core |
