| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: transparent darkness, which dimly showed me the other three beds
and the five different nightcaps on the pillows. But out of the
window the dawn was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-
tops, and day was about to flood the plateau. The hour was
inspiriting; and there seemed a promise of calm weather, which was
perfectly fulfilled. I was soon under way with Modestine. The
road lay for a while over the plateau, and then descended through a
precipitous village into the valley of the Chassezac. This stream
ran among green meadows, well hidden from the world by its steep
banks; the broom was in flower, and here and there was a hamlet
sending up its smoke.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: better? to sleep better? or is it the sort of exercise I set my heart
on? Not like those runners of the long race,[32] to have my legs grow
muscular and my shoulders leaner in proportion; nor like a boxer,
thickening chest and shoulders at expense of legs; but by distribution
of the toil throughout my limbs[33] I seek to give an even balance to
my body. Or are you laughing to think that I shall not in future have
to seek a partner in the training school,[34] whereby it will not be
necessary for an old man like myself to strip in public?[35] All I
shall need will be a seven-sofa'd chamber,[36] where I can warm to
work,[37] just like the lad here who has found this room quite ample
for the purpose. And in winter I shall do gymnastics[38] under cover,
The Symposium |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: That coap'st with death himselfe, to scape fro it:
And if thou dar'st, Ile giue thee remedie
Iul. Oh bid me leape, rather then marrie Paris,
From of the Battlements of any Tower,
Or walke in theeuish waies, or bid me lurke
Where Serpents are: chaine me with roaring Beares
Or hide me nightly in a Charnell house,
Orecouered quite with dead mens ratling bones,
With reckie shankes and yellow chappels sculls:
Or bid me go into a new made graue,
And hide me with a dead man in his graue,
Romeo and Juliet |
