| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: seeing that it was in a downward direction and you travelled
blindfolded. Being asked a favour by one who used many superfluous
words, he said to him: "When you have another request to make, send
someone else to make it." Having been wearied by a similar man with a
long oration who wound up by saying: "Perhaps I have fatigued you by
speaking so long," Castruccio said: "You have not, because I have not
listened to a word you said." He used to say of one who had been a
beautiful child and who afterwards became a fine man, that he was
dangerous, because he first took the husbands from the wives and now
he took the wives from their husbands. To an envious man who laughed,
he said: "Do you laugh because you are successful or because another
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: greater power of destruction of which they were the precursors
might quite easily shatter every relationship and institution of
mankind.
' "What will they be doing," asked Mylius, "what will they be
doing? It's plain we've got to put an end to war. It's plain
things have to be run some way. THIS--all this--is impossible."
'I made no immediate answer. Something--I cannot think what--had
brought back to me the figure of that man I had seen wounded on
the very first day of actual fighting. I saw again his angry,
tearful eyes, and that poor, dripping, bloody mess that had been
a skilful human hand five minutes before, thrust out in indignant
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: "'Lots of people act well,' answered the Miller; 'but very few
people talk well, which shows that talking is much the more
difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing also'; and he
looked sternly across the table at his little son, who felt so
ashamed of himself that he hung his head down, and grew quite
scarlet, and began to cry into his tea. However, he was so young
that you must excuse him."
"Is that the end of the story?" asked the Water-rat.
"Certainly not," answered the Linnet, "that is the beginning."
"Then you are quite behind the age," said the Water-rat. "Every
good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to
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