| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: LADY CHILTERN. Good morning, Lord Goring!
LORD GORING. [Bowing.] Good morning, Lady Chiltern!
MABEL CHILTERN. [Aside to LORD GORING.] I shall be in the
conservatory under the second palm tree on the left.
LORD GORING. Second on the left?
MABEL CHILTERN. [With a look of mock surprise.] Yes; the usual palm
tree.
[Blows a kiss to him, unobserved by LADY CHILTERN, and goes out.]
LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern, I have a certain amount of very good
news to tell you. Mrs. Cheveley gave me up Robert's letter last
night, and I burned it. Robert is safe.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: charioteer, two hoplites, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters,
three javelin-men, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve
hundred ships.
Each of the ten kings was absolute in his own city and kingdom. The
relations of the different governments to one another were determined by
the injunctions of Poseidon, which had been inscribed by the first kings on
a column of orichalcum in the temple of Poseidon, at which the kings and
princes gathered together and held a festival every fifth and every sixth
year alternately. Around the temple ranged the bulls of Poseidon, one of
which the ten kings caught and sacrificed, shedding the blood of the victim
over the inscription, and vowing not to transgress the laws of their father
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: reciprocal congratulations.
"It is my uncle!" cried Popinot. "He has actually come to see me."
"An uncle!" said Finot, "and we haven't got a glass!"
"The uncle of my friend Popinot is a judge," said Gaudissart to Finot,
"and he is not to be hoaxed; he saved my life. Ha! when one gets to
the pass where I was, under the scaffold--/Qou-ick/, and good-by to
your hair,"--imitating the fatal knife with voice and gesture. "One
recollects gratefully the virtuous magistrate who saved the gutter
where the champagne flows down. Recollect?--I'd recollect him dead-
drunk! You don't know what it is, Finot, unless you have stood in need
of Monsieur Popinot. Huzza! we ought to fire a salute--from six
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
