| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: carried up to Athens from the army at Corinth.
TERPSION: Was he alive or dead?
EUCLID: He was scarcely alive, for he has been badly wounded; but he was
suffering even more from the sickness which has broken out in the army.
TERPSION: The dysentery, you mean?
EUCLID: Yes.
TERPSION: Alas! what a loss he will be!
EUCLID: Yes, Terpsion, he is a noble fellow; only to-day I heard some
people highly praising his behaviour in this very battle.
TERPSION: No wonder; I should rather be surprised at hearing anything else
of him. But why did he go on, instead of stopping at Megara?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: weather,"--aptly enough, for there is neither clear light nor total
darkness about him. He is like all the ministers who have succeeded
one another in France since the Charter. A woman with principles could
not have fallen into better hands. It is certainly a great thing for a
virtuous woman to have married a man incapable of follies.
Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the
hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in
return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of
that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: ebony cabinet which was to escape her observation at first,
immediately rushed across her; and though there could
be nothing really in it, there was something whimsical,
it was certainly a very remarkable coincidence! She
took her candle and looked closely at the cabinet.
It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but it was japan,
black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she
held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect
of gold. The key was in the door, and she had a strange
fancy to look into it; not, however, with the smallest
expectation of finding anything, but it was so very odd,
Northanger Abbey |
