| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death. This
happened in the days of the democracy. But when the oligarchy of the
Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others into the rotunda, and
bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted to put him
to death. This was a specimen of the sort of commands which they were
always giving with the view of implicating as many as possible in their
crimes; and then I showed, not in word only but in deed, that, if I may be
allowed to use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that
my great and only care was lest I should do an unrighteous or unholy thing.
For the strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me into doing
wrong; and when we came out of the rotunda the other four went to Salamis
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: pan towards the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me the
idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you, were pretty dry.
Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to
the left, and I did the same to the right. But the reeds were still
green at the bottom, and we should never have got them well alight had
it not been for the wind, which grew stronger and stronger as the sun
climbed higher, and forced the fire into them. At last, after
half-an-hour's trouble, the flames got a hold, and began to spread out
like a fan, whereupon I went round to the further side of the pan to
wait for the lions, standing well out in the open, as we stood at the
copse to-day where you shot the woodcock. It was a rather risky thing
Long Odds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: Aline moved too late to hinder him.
"Andre! Andre!"
Panting, gasping, haggard of face, on the verge almost of hysteria,
the distracted Countess flung at last an effective, a terrible
barrier between the hatred of those men, each intent upon taking
the other's life.
"He is your father, Andre! Gervais, he is your son - our son! The
letter there... on the table... 0 my God!" And she slipped
nervelessly to the ground, and crouched there sobbing at the feet
of M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
CHAPTER XV
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