| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: Then Antinous answered him and spake, saying: 'Telemachus,
proud of speech, and unrestrained in fury, what word hast
thou spoken? If all the wooers should vouchsafe him as much
as I, this house would keep him far enough aloof even for
three months' space.'
So he spake, and seized the footstool whereon he rested his
sleek feet as he sat at the feast, and showed it from
beneath the table where it lay. But all the others gave
somewhat and filled the wallet with bread and flesh; yea,
and even now, Odysseus as he returned to the threshold, was
like to escape scot free, making trial of the Achaeans, but
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: each other all that time, old sport, and you didn't know. I used to laugh
sometimes."--but there was no laughter in his eyes----" to think that you
didn't know."
"Oh--that's all." Tom tapped his thick fingers together like a clergyman
and leaned back in his chair.
"You're crazy!" he exploded. "I can't speak about what happened five years
ago, because I didn't know Daisy then--and I'll be damned if I see how you
got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back
door. But all the rest of that's a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when
she married me and she loves me now."
"No," said Gatsby, shaking his head.
The Great Gatsby |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: these you have made haste to cast away.
Common honour; not the honour of having done anything right, but
the honour of not having done aught conspicuously foul; the honour
of the inert: that was what remained to you. We are not all
expected to be Damiens; a man may conceive his duty more narrowly,
he may love his comforts better; and none will cast a stone at him
for that. But will a gentleman of your reverend profession allow
me an example from the fields of gallantry? When two gentlemen
compete for the favour of a lady, and the one succeeds and the
other is rejected, and (as will sometimes happen) matter damaging
to the successful rival's credit reaches the ear of the defeated,
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