| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: he added: "By a lifelong persistence in doing nothing wrong, and that
I take to be the finest practice for his defence which a man could
devise." Presently reverting to the topic, Hermogenes demanded: "Do
you not see, SOcrates, how often Athenian juries[8] are constrained by
arguments to put quite innocent people to death, and not less often to
acquit the guilty, either through some touch of pity excited by the
pleadings, or that the defendant had skill to turn some charming
phrase?" Thus appealed to, Socrates replied: "Nay, solemnly I tell
you, twice already I have essayed to consider my defence, and twice
the divinity[9] hinders me"; and to the remark of Hermogenes, "That is
strange!" he answered again: "Strange, do you call it, that to God it
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: it was ugly. And then I thought of what you had said this morning as to
whether we ought."
They walked on vaguely, till she paused, and her little voice began anew:
"It seems so weak, too, to vacillate like this! And yet how much better
than to act rashly a second time.... How terrible that scene was to me!
The expression in that flabby woman's face, leading her on to give herself
to that gaol-bird, not for a few hours, as she would, but for a lifetime,
as she must. And the other poor soul--to escape a nominal shame which was
owing to the weakness of her character, degrading herself to the real
shame of bondage to a tyrant who scorned her--a man whom to avoid for ever
was her only chance of salvation.... This is our parish church, isn't it?
Jude the Obscure |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: twigs which had crept in between the planks was broken, and it
had been broken very recently, for the leaves were still fresh
and the sap was oozing from the crushed stem. Muller walked over
to the fence and examined the twig carefully. He soon saw how
it came to be broken. The broken part was about the height of a
man's knee from the ground. And just at this height there was
quite a space between two of the planks of the fence, heavy
planks which were laid cross-ways and nailed to thick posts. It
would have been very easy for anybody to get a foothold in this
open space between the planks.
It was very evidently some foot thrust in between the planks which
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