| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: earlier, before a single bird had untucked his head, that twenty
lights were struck in as many bedrooms, twenty pairs of shutters
opened, and twenty pairs of eyes stretched to the sky to forecast
the weather for the day.
Owls that had been catching mice in the out-houses, rabbits that
had been eating the wintergreens in the gardens, and stoats that
had been sucking the blood of the rabbits, discerning that their
human neighbors were on the move, discreetly withdrew from
publicity, and were seen and heard no more that day.
The daylight revealed the whole of Mr. Melbury's homestead, of
which the wagon-sheds had been an outlying erection. It formed
The Woodlanders |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had remembered them, he would have
made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and how, when he
could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why
when one comes the other follows, as I know by my own experience now, when
after the pain in my leg which was caused by the chain pleasure appears to
succeed.
Upon this Cebes said: I am glad, Socrates, that you have mentioned the
name of Aesop. For it reminds me of a question which has been asked by
many, and was asked of me only the day before yesterday by Evenus the poet
--he will be sure to ask it again, and therefore if you would like me to
have an answer ready for him, you may as well tell me what I should say to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: consternation, and all his friends about him in tears, the
Mardian came up, and gave them all new life. He convinced
them, by the coolness and humidity of the air, which they could
feel in breathing it, that the river which he had spoken of was
now not far off, and the calculation of the time that had been
required to reach it came, he said, to the same result, for the
night was almost spent. And, at the same time, others came with
information that all the confusion in the camp proceeded only
from their own violence and robbery among themselves. To
compose this tumult, and bring them again into some order after
their distraction, he commanded the signal to be given for a
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