| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: VIII
But to proceed. We are all aware that there is no state[1] in the
world in which greater obedience is shown to magistrates, and to the
laws themselves, than Sparta. But, for my part, I am disposed to think
that Lycurgus could never have attempted to establish this healthy
condition,[2] until he had first secured the unanimity of the most
powerful members of the state. I infer this for the following
reasons.[3] In other states the leaders in rank and influence do not
even desire to be thought to fear the magistrates. Such a thing they
would regard as in itself a symbol of servility. In Sparta, on the
contrary, the stronger a man is the more readily does he bow before
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: which we have beforehand carefully drawn out, but as it is likewise
necessary that we be furnished with some other house in which we may live
commodiously during the operations, so that I might not remain irresolute
in my actions, while my reason compelled me to suspend my judgement, and
that I might not be prevented from living thenceforward in the greatest
possible felicity, I formed a provisory code of morals, composed of three
or four maxims, with which I am desirous to make you acquainted.
The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, adhering firmly
to the faith in which, by the grace of God, I had been educated from my
childhood and regulating my conduct in every other matter according to the
most moderate opinions, and the farthest removed from extremes, which
Reason Discourse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: with the gradual decline of the artist's fame. She had a
fancy that if his credit had been in the ascendant the first
Mrs. Leath might have continued to throne over the drawing-
room mantel- piece, even to the exclusion of her successor's
effigy. Instead of this, her peregrinations had finally
landed her in the shrouded solitude of the billiard-room, an
apartment which no one ever entered, but where it was
understood that "the light was better," or might have been
if the shutters had not been always closed.
Here the poor lady, elegantly dressed, and seated in the
middle of a large lonely canvas, in the blank contemplation
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