| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: against the Portuguese, imagining he should meet with no resistance;
and indeed, any man, however brave, would have been of the same
opinion; for his forces consisted of fifteen thousand foot, beside a
numerous body of cavalry, and the Portuguese commander had but three
hundred and fifty men, having lost eight in attacking some passes,
and left forty at Mazma, to maintain an open intercourse with the
viceroy of the Indies. This little troop of our countrymen were
upon the declivity of a hill near a wood; above them stood the
Abyssins, who resolved to remain quiet spectators of the battle, and
to declare themselves on that side which should be favoured with
victory.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: pains of slavery for the rest of their days; or, after falling into
dolorous straits,[4] when they have paid to the uttermost farthing of
all, or may be more than the worth of all, that they possess, must
drag on a miserable existence in want of the barest necessaries until
death release them. Many also are they who gain an evil repute through
infirmity of body, being thought to play the coward. Can it be that
you despise these penalties affixed to an evil habit? Do you think you
could lightly endure them? Far lighter, I imagine, nay, pleasant even
by comparison, are the toils which he will undergo who duly cultivates
a healthy bodily condition. Or do you maintain that the evil habit is
healthier, and in general more useful than the good? Do you pour
The Memorabilia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: First, I imagined that upon seeing my light they might have put
themselves into their boat, and endeavoured to make the shore: but
that the sea running very high, they might have been cast away.
Other times I imagined that they might have lost their boat before,
as might be the case many ways; particularly by the breaking of the
sea upon their ship, which many times obliged men to stave, or take
in pieces, their boat, and sometimes to throw it overboard with
their own hands. Other times I imagined they had some other ship
or ships in company, who, upon the signals of distress they made,
had taken them up, and carried them off. Other times I fancied
they were all gone off to sea in their boat, and being hurried away
Robinson Crusoe |
