| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: premature praise. Only one section was yet carved, although the
whole was pencil-marked in lengths; and when I proposed to buy it,
Poni (for that was the artist's name) recoiled in horror. But I
was not to be moved, and simply refused restitution, for I had long
wondered why a people who displayed, in their tattooing, so great a
gift of arabesque invention, should display it nowhere else. Here,
at last, I had found something of the same talent in another
medium; and I held the incompleteness, in these days of world-wide
brummagem, for a happy mark of authenticity. Neither my reasons
nor my purpose had I the means of making clear to Poni; I could
only hold on to the stick, and bid the artist follow me to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: hopeless confusion. One of the earliest lessons to be learned
by the scientific student of linguistics is the uselessness of
comparing together directly the words contained in derivative
languages. For example, you might set the English twelve side
by side with the Latin duodecim, and then stare at the two
words to all eternity without any hope of reaching a
conclusion, good or bad, about either of them: least of all
would you suspect that they are descended from the same
radical. But if you take each word by itself and trace it back
to its primitive shape, explaining every change of every
letter as you go, you will at last reach the old Aryan
 Myths and Myth-Makers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: him.
FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.
SECOND MURDERER. Strike!
FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.
CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.
SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,
anon.
CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?
FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.
CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.
SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.
 Richard III |