| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: At length, as fate and her ill stars requir'd,
To hear the series of the war desir'd.
"Relate at large, my godlike guest," she said,
"The Grecian stratagems, the town betray'd:
The fatal issue of so long a war,
Your flight, your wand'rings, and your woes, declare;
For, since on ev'ry sea, on ev'ry coast,
Your men have been distress'd, your navy toss'd,
Sev'n times the sun has either tropic view'd,
The winter banish'd, and the spring renew'd."
BOOK II
Aeneid |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: "But those are inferior," said Hortense. "These." And she touched rightly
the bowl in which my roses stood close beside Eliza's ledger.
Eliza paused for one second. "Those are not for sale."
Hortense paused, too. Then she hung to it. "They are so much the best."
She was holding her purse.
"I think so, too," said Eliza. "But I cannot let any one have them."
Hortense put her purse away. "You know best. Shall you furnish us flowers
as well as cake?"
Eliza's sweetness rose an octave, softer and softer. "Why, they have
flowers there! Didn't you know?"
And to this last and frightful peck through the bars Hortense found no
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: I am grieved when I think of our mutual love.
ALCIBIADES: At what?
SOCRATES: At your fancying that the contest on which you are entering is
with people here.
ALCIBIADES: Why, what others are there?
SOCRATES: Is that a question which a magnanimous soul should ask?
ALCIBIADES: Do you mean to say that the contest is not with these?
SOCRATES: And suppose that you were going to steer a ship into action,
would you only aim at being the best pilot on board? Would you not, while
acknowledging that you must possess this degree of excellence, rather look
to your antagonists, and not, as you are now doing, to your fellow
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