| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: Just at the critical moment Dercylidas arrived, and in a single day
received the adhesion of the three seaboard cities Larisa, Hamaxitus,
and Colonae--which threw open their gates to him. Then he sent
messengers to the cities of the Aeolid also, offering them freedom if
they would receive him within their walls and become allies.
Accordingly the men of Neandria and Ilium and Cocylium lent willing
ears; for since the death of Mania their Hellenic garrisons had been
treated but ill. But the commander of the garrison in Cebrene, a place
of some strength, bethinking him that if he should succeed in guarding
that city for Pharnabazus, he would receive honour at his hands,
refused to admit Dercylidas. Whereupon the latter, in a rage, prepared
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: mechanism, but also the peculiar blue light that irradiated the whole
place. We had taken it as a natural thing that a subterranean cavern
should be artificially lit, and even now, though the fact was patent to my
eyes, I did not really grasp its import until presently the darkness came.
The meaning and structure of this huge apparatus we saw I cannot explain,
because we neither of us learnt what it was for or how it worked. One
after another, big shafts of metal flung out and up from its centre, their
heads travelling in what seemed to me to be a parabolic path; each dropped
a sort of dangling arm as it rose towards the apex of its flight and
plunged down into a vertical cylinder, forcing this down before it. About
it moved the shapes of tenders, little figures that seemed vaguely
The First Men In The Moon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: as meaningless and vulgar as Reformations in theology. But while
to propose to be a better man is a piece of unscientific cant, to
have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have
suffered. And such I think I have become.
If after I am free a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not
invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. I can be perfectly happy
by myself. With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could
not be perfectly happy? Besides, feasts are not for me any more.
I have given too many to care about them. That side of life is
over for me, very fortunately, I dare say. But if after I am free
a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it,
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