| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Vailima
XLI
WE uncommiserate pass into the night
From the loud banquet, and departing leave
A tremor in men's memories, faint and sweet
And frail as music. Features of our face,
The tones of the voice, the touch of the loved hand,
Perish and vanish, one by one, from earth:
Meanwhile, in the hall of song, the multitude
Applauds the new performer. One, perchance,
One ultimate survivor lingers on,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral
evil; in his own words, 'they cannot make a man wise or foolish.'
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the
'common principle,' there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is
anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of
Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws in
the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech which
occur in Plato.
CRITO
by
Plato
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: I says:
"Tom Sawyer, I want to ask you some questions."
"Go ahead," he says, and I see Jim chirk up to
listen.
"As I understand it, the whole thing is in the buttons
and the peg -- the rest ain't of no consequence. A
button is one shape, a peg is another shape, but that
ain't any matter?"
"No, that ain't any matter, as long as they've both
got the same power."
"All right, then. What is the power that's in a
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