| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: Well, then, of this frank confidence in others the tyrant has the
scantiest share.[3] Seeing his life is such, he cannot even trust his
meats and drinks, but he must bid his serving-men before the feast
begins, or ever the libation to the gods is poured,[4] to taste the
viands, out of sheer mistrust there may be mischief lurking in the cup
or platter.[5]
[3] Or, "from this . . . is almost absolutely debarred."
[4] "Or ever grace is said."
[5] Cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 4.
Once more, the rest of mankind find in their fatherland a treasure
worth all else beside. The citizens form their own body-guard[6]
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: nervous tension, forms a sort of halo, through which the world below
is seen. How otherwise can we account for the perennial good faith
which leads to so many repeated presentments of the same effects, and
the constant ignoring of warnings given by children, such a terror to
their parents, or by husbands, so familiar as they are with the
peacock airs of their wives? Monsieur de la Baudraye had the frankness
of a man who opens an umbrella at the first drop of rain. When his
wife was started on the subject of Negro emancipation or the
improvement of convict prisons, he would take up his little blue cap
and vanish without a sound, in the certainty of being able to get to
Saint-Thibault to see off a cargo of puncheons, and return an hour
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: was too late. Almost at the instant of impact I turned my
bows upward, and then with a shattering jolt we were in
collision. What I had hoped for happened. The cruiser,
already tilted at a perilous angle, was carried completely over
backward by the impact of my smaller vessel. Her crew fell
twisting and screaming through the air to the water far below,
while the cruiser, her propellers still madly churning, dived
swiftly headforemost after them to the bottom of the Sea of Omean.
The collision crushed our steel bows, and notwithstanding
every effort on our part came near to hurling us from the
deck. As it was we landed in a wildly clutching heap at the
The Gods of Mars |
