| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: perhaps understand you better; has not Homer made Achilles wily?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates; he is the most straight-forward of
mankind, and when Homer introduces them talking with one another in the
passage called the Prayers, Achilles is supposed by the poet to say to
Odysseus:--
'Son of Laertes, sprung from heaven, crafty Odysseus, I will speak out
plainly the word which I intend to carry out in act, and which will, I
believe, be accomplished. For I hate him like the gates of death who
thinks one thing and says another. But I will speak that which shall be
accomplished.'
Now, in these verses he clearly indicates the character of the two men; he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Cruel."
For a long time O-Tar sat, his head sunk upon his breast, staring
blankly at the floor.
"Tell them," he said at last in a hollow voice that sounded not
at all like the voice of a great jeddak; "tell them that I will
go to the chambers of O-Mai and search for Turan the slave."
CHAPTER XXI
A RISK FOR LOVE
"EY, ey, he is a craven and he called me 'doddering fool'!" The
speaker was I-Gos and he addressed a knot of chieftains in one of
the chambers of the palace of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator: "If A-Kor
 The Chessmen of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: street could be seen the shopkeepers taking down their
shutters.
Between seven and eight the street breakfasted. Now and
then a waiter from one of the cheap restaurants crossed from
one sidewalk to the other, balancing on one palm a tray
covered with a napkin. Everywhere was the smell of coffee
and of frying steaks. A little later, following in the path
of the day laborers, came the clerks and shop girls, dressed
with a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancing
apprehensively at the power-house clock. Their employers
followed an hour or so later--on the cable cars for the most
 McTeague |