| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives
which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign
of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled
away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and
leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would
have brought bloodshed.
Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt
tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps
more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had
determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed
encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped
Men of Iron |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: Vice and Genius too often produce the same effects; and this misleads
the common mind. What is genius but a long excess which squanders time
and wealth and physical powers, and leads more rapidly to a hospital
than the worst of passions? Men even seem to have more respect for
vices than for genius, since to the latter they refuse credit. The
profits accruing from the hidden labors of the brain are so remote
that the social world fears to square accounts with the man of
learning in his lifetime, preferring to get rid of its obligations by
not forgiving his misfortunes or his poverty.
If, in spite of this inveterate forgetfulness of the present,
Balthazar Claes had abandoned his mysterious abstractions, if some
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: of the loud battle-cry urged Antilochus on. "Antilochus," said
he, "you are young and there is none of the Achaeans more fleet
of foot or more valiant than you are. See if you cannot spring
upon some Trojan and kill him."
He hurried away when he had thus spurred Antilochus, who at once
darted out from the front ranks and aimed a spear, after looking
carefully round him. The Trojans fell back as he threw, and the
dart did not speed from his hand without effect, for it struck
Melanippus the proud son of Hiketaon in the breast by the nipple
as he was coming forward, and his armour rang rattling round him
as he fell heavily to the ground. Antilochus sprang upon him as a
The Iliad |
