The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "but those who go to the arena may come out alive and thus
regain their liberty, as did the two whom you saw."
"They gained their liberty? And how?"
"It is the custom of the Mahars to liberate those who
remain alive within the arena after the beasts depart
or are killed. Thus it has happened that several mighty
warriors from far distant lands, whom we have captured
on our slave raids, have battled the brutes turned in upon
them and slain them, thereby winning their freedom.
In the instance which you witnessed the beasts killed
each other, but the result was the same--the man and woman
 At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: 'And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame:
Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
To privilege dishonour in thy name?
Thou back'st reproach against long-living laud,
And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd.
'Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee,
From a pure heart command thy rebel will:
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,
For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: That foster-brother of remorse and pain
Drops poison in mine ear, - O to be free,
To burn one's old ships! and to launch again
Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!
O for Medea with her poppied spell!
O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,
And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she
Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,
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