| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: obstacles of impassable forests, inaccessible cliffs, and deserts
crowded with beasts of prey, fierce by nature, and raging for want
of sustenance. Yet if they who endeavoured with so much ardour to
discover the spring of this river had landed at Mazna on the coast
of the Red Sea, and marched a little more to the south than the
south-west, they might perhaps have gratified their curiosity at
less expense, and in about twenty days might have enjoyed the
desired sight of the sources of the Nile.
But this discovery was reserved for the invincible bravery of our
noble countrymen, who, not discouraged by the dangers of a
navigation in seas never explored before, have subdued kingdoms and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,
I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.
Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,
Upon agreement from us to his liking,
Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;
Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.
GREMIO.
So said, so done, is well.
Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?
PETRUCHIO.
I know she is an irksome brawling scold;
The Taming of the Shrew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: Athenians are ill advised, in their adoption, namely, of the less
respectable party, in a state divided by faction. But if so, they do
it advisedly. If they chose the more respectable, they would be
adopting those whose views and interests differ from their own, for
there is no state in which the best element is friendly to the people.
It is the worst element which in every state favours the democracy--on
the principle that like favours like.[19] It is simple enough then.
The Athenians choose what is most akin to themselves. Also on every
occasion on which they have attempted to side with the better classes,
it has not fared well with them, but within a short interval the
democratic party has been enslaved, as for instance in Boeotia;[20]
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