| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: Gaston told him, his wife appeared to him, and he had now resolved
to /rejoin/ her, to use his own expression. Instead of opposing
this idea, Lord Lewin took a tone of approval. "But," he said,
"men such as we ought not to die in a common way. I myself have
always had the idea of going to South America, where, not far from
Paraguay, there is one of the greatest cataracts in the world,--
the Saut de Gayra. The mists rising from it can be seen at a
distance of many miles. An enormous volume of water is suddenly
forced through a narrow channel, and rushes with terrific force
and the noise of a hundred thunder-claps into the gulf below.
There, indeed, one could find a noble death."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: hundred, who were killed with their enemies, while chasing them into
craggy and difficult places. These had been under suspicion of
favoring the Lacedaemonians, and in their eagerness to clear
themselves in the eyes of their fellow-citizens, exposed themselves
in the pursuit, and so met their death. News of the disaster reached
Pausanias as he was on the way from Plataea to Thespiae, and having
set his army in order he came to Haliartus; Thrasybulus, also, came
from Thebes, leading the Athenians.
Pausanias proposing to request the bodies of the dead under truce,
the elders of the Spartans took it ill, and were angry among
themselves, and coming to the king, declared that Lysander should not
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: AT MORNING
THE day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating
concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform
them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with
industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day,
bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured,
and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.
EVENING
WE come before Thee, O Lord, in the end of thy day with
thanksgiving.
Our beloved in the far parts of the earth, those who are now
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