| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race,
some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter.
Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to
stay outdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as
horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not remember the
interest with which, when young, he looked at shelving rocks, or any
approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning of that portion,
any portion of our most primitive ancestor which still survived in
us. From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark
and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of grass and straw, of
boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At last, we know not what
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: free until they afterwards enslaved themselves. Whereas, to the great king
she refused to give the assistance of the state, for she could not forget
the trophies of Marathon and Salamis and Plataea; but she allowed exiles
and volunteers to assist him, and they were his salvation. And she
herself, when she was compelled, entered into the war, and built walls and
ships, and fought with the Lacedaemonians on behalf of the Parians. Now
the king fearing this city and wanting to stand aloof, when he saw the
Lacedaemonians growing weary of the war at sea, asked of us, as the price
of his alliance with us and the other allies, to give up the Hellenes in
Asia, whom the Lacedaemonians had previously handed over to him, he
thinking that we should refuse, and that then he might have a pretence for
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