| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: lord, the West Wind, slept profoundly like a tired Titan, or else
remained lost in a mood of idle sadness known only to frank
natures. All was still to the westward; we looked in vain towards
his stronghold: the King slumbered on so deeply that he let his
foraging brother steal the very mantle of gold-lined purple clouds
from his bowed shoulders. What had become of the dazzling hoard of
royal jewels exhibited at every close of day? Gone, disappeared,
extinguished, carried off without leaving a single gold band or the
flash of a single sunbeam in the evening sky! Day after day
through a cold streak of heavens as bare and poor as the inside of
a rifled safe a rayless and despoiled sun would slink shamefacedly,
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: of the best?
ALCIBIADES: I do now, if I did not before, Socrates.
SOCRATES: The state or the soul, therefore, which wishes to have a right
existence must hold firmly to this knowledge, just as the sick man clings
to the physician, or the passenger depends for safety on the pilot. And if
the soul does not set sail until she have obtained this she will be all the
safer in the voyage through life. But when she rushes in pursuit of wealth
or bodily strength or anything else, not having the knowledge of the best,
so much the more is she likely to meet with misfortune. And he who has the
love of learning (Or, reading polumatheian, 'abundant learning.'), and is
skilful in many arts, and does not possess the knowledge of the best, but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: Arickara village, when rumors began to circulate that the Sioux
had followed them up, and that a war party, four or five hundred
in number, were lurking somewhere in the neighborhood. These
rumors produced much embarrassment in the camp. The white hunters
were deterred from venturing forth in quest of game, neither did
the leaders think it proper to expose them to such a risk. The
Arickaras, too, who had suffered greatly in their wars with this
cruel and ferocious tribe, were roused to increased vigilance,
and stationed mounted scouts upon the neighboring hills. This,
however, is a general precaution among the tribes of the
prairies. Those immense plains present a horizon like the ocean,
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