| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: city. And so, notwithstanding our noble sentiments, we were again
isolated, because we were unwilling to be guilty of the base and unholy act
of giving up Hellenes to barbarians. And we were in the same case as when
we were subdued before; but, by the favour of Heaven, we managed better,
for we ended the war without the loss of our ships or walls or colonies;
the enemy was only too glad to be quit of us. Yet in this war we lost many
brave men, such as were those who fell owing to the ruggedness of the
ground at the battle of Corinth, or by treason at Lechaeum. Brave men,
too, were those who delivered the Persian king, and drove the
Lacedaemonians from the sea. I remind you of them, and you must celebrate
them together with me, and do honour to their memories.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: something about brown spots, leaped down into it. Lengthwise, flat
on his back, he lay. While the fawn covered him over with cedars,
a far-away voice came up through them, "Brown, brown spots to wear
forever!" A red ember was tucked under the dry grass. Off
scampered the fawns after their mothers; and when a great distance
away they looked backward. They saw a blue smoke rising, writhing
upward till it vanished in the blue ether.
"Is that Iktomi's spirit?" asked one fawn of another.
"No! I think he would jump out before he could burn into
smoke and cinders," answered his comrade.
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: Westburnflat; "I'll weize a brace of balls through them before
morning."
"We are agreed, then," said Ellieslaw, when the shouts had
somewhat subsided, "to bear this state of things no longer?"
"We are agreed to a man," answered his guests.
"Not literally so," said Mr. Ratcliffe; "for though I cannot hope
to assuage the violent symptoms which seem so suddenly to have
seized upon the company, yet I beg to observe, that so far as the
opinion of a single member goes, I do not entirely coincide in
the list of grievances which has been announced, and that I do
utterly protest against the frantic measures which you seem
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