The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: of the company, and, taking him by the hand, "You concealed,"
said he, "the secret from us, but Brutus has told me all." At
which words when Casca was surprised, the other said laughing,
"How come you to be so rich of a sudden, that you should stand
to be chosen aedile?" So near was Casca to let out the secret,
upon the mere ambiguity of the other's expression. Then
Popilius Laenas, a senator, having saluted Brutus and Cassius
more earnestly than usual, whispered them softly in the ear and
said, "My wishes are with you, that you may accomplish what you
design, and I advise you to make no delay, for the thing is now
no secret." This said, he departed, and left them in great
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: That murderous mother of red harlotries?
At Munich on the marble architrave
The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
Which wash AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless
For lack of our ideals, if one star
Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: convicted before a native magistrate and sentenced to six months'
imprisonment; or, I should rather say, detention; for it was
expressly directed that they were to be used as gentlemen and not
as prisoners, that the door was to stand open, and that all their
wishes should be gratified. This extraordinary sentence fell upon
the accused like a thunderbolt. There is no need to suppose
perfidy, where a careless interpreter suffices to explain all; but
the six chiefs claim to have understood their coming to Apia as an
act of submission merely formal, that they came in fact under an
implied indemnity, and that the president stood pledged to see them
scatheless. Already, on their way from the court-house, they were
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