| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: intending to use the tale for his poem, enquired into the meaning of the
names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had
translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of
the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our
language. My great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which
is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a
child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you
must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced. The
tale, which was of great length, began as follows:--
I have before remarked in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they
distributed the whole earth into portions differing in extent, and made for
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: lying upon the bench beside him, and a quart beaker of spiced
wine at his elbow. A clerk sat at the other end of the same
table, with inkhorn in one hand and pen in the other, and a
parchment spread in front of him.
Master Robert, the castle steward, stood before the knight, who
every now and then put to him a question, which the other would
answer, and the clerk write the answer down upon the parchment.
His father stood with his back to the fireplace, looking down
upon the floor with his blind eyes, his brows drawn moodily
together, and the scar of the great wound that he had received at
the tournament at York--the wound that had made him
Men of Iron |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: the oats swashing in the pocket of my coat. The view, back upon
the northern Gevaudan, extended with every step; scarce a tree,
scarce a house, appeared upon the fields of wild hill that ran
north, east, and west, all blue and gold in the haze and sunlight
of the morning. A multitude of little birds kept sweeping and
twittering about my path; they perched on the stone pillars, they
pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle in volleys
in the blue air, and show, from time to time, translucent
flickering wings between the sun and me.
Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint large noise, like
a distant surf, had filled my ears. Sometimes I was tempted to
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