| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: the middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come
across, blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make
him talk, but he went on naively looking around through his spectacles
as if in search of somebody and answered all her questions in
monosyllables. He was in the way and was the only one who did not
notice the fact. Most of the guests, knowing of the affair with the
bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering
how such a clumsy, modest fellow could have played such a prank on a
policeman.
"You have only lately arrived?" the countess asked him.
"Oui, madame," replied he, looking around him.
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank
opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a
monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across
the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all
other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears.
Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know
the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling,
aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in
the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly -- with what
an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing
tranquility in the men -- with what accurately measured
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: Nay, did not the very Thebans, in return for certain benefits, grant
to us Athenians to exercise leadership over them?[13] And at another
date the Lacedaemonans suffered us Athenians to arrange the terms of
hegemony[14] at our discretion, not as driven to such submission, but
in requital of kindly treatment. And to-day, owing to the chaos[15]
which reigns in Hellas, if I mistake not, an opportunity has fallen to
this city of winning back our fellow-Hellenes without pain or peril or
expense of any sort. It is given to us to try and harmonise states
which are at war with one another: it is given to us to reconcile the
differences of rival factions within those states themselves, wherever
existing.
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