| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: messenger could be more discreet nor more devoted than I."
"What is the matter with him?"
"How if he loved you no longer?"
"Oh! that is impossible!" she cried, and a faint smile, nothing
less than frank, broke over her face. Then all at once a kind of
shudder ran through her, and she reddened, and she gave me a
wild, swift glance as she asked:
"Is he alive?"
Great God! What a terrible phrase! I was too young to bear that
tone in her voice; I made no reply, only looked at the unhappy
woman in helpless bewilderment.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: same table, proceed against him. Now the man who is dead was a poor
dependant of mine who worked for us as a field labourer on our farm in
Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a quarrel with
one of our domestic servants and slew him. My father bound him hand and
foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a
diviner what he should do with him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and
took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that
no great harm would be done even if he did die. Now this was just what
happened. For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon him,
that before the messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead. And my
father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: than my neebours. I never set up to be speeritual; I never
did. I'm a plain, canty creature; godliness is cheerfulness,
says I; give me my fiddle and a dram, and I wouldna hairm a
flee.'
'And I repeat my question,' said M'Brair: 'Are you fit - fit
for this great charge? fit to carry and save souls?'
'Fit? Blethers! As fit's yoursel',' cried Haddo.
'Are you so great a self-deceiver?' said M'Brair. 'Wretched
man, trampler upon God's covenants, crucifier of your Lord
afresh. I will ding you to the earth with one word: How
about the young woman, Janet M'Clour?'
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