| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: perished with him on the self-same day; but you, Patroclus, even
when Achilles slew my husband and sacked the city of noble Mynes,
told me that I was not to weep, for you said you would make
Achilles marry me, and take me back with him to Phthia, we should
have a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. You were always kind to
me and I shall never cease to grieve for you."
She wept as she spoke, and the women joined in her lament-making
as though their tears were for Patroclus, but in truth each was
weeping for her own sorrows. The elders of the Achaeans gathered
round Achilles and prayed him to take food, but he groaned and
would not do so. "I pray you," said he, "if any comrade will hear
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: is based, but on faith; and yet they ought not on that account to
be despised or neglected. Thus in this world we are compelled by
the needs of this bodily life; but we are not hereby justified.
"My kingdom is not hence, nor of this world," says Christ; but He
does not say, "My kingdom is not here, nor in this world." Paul,
too, says, "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the
flesh" (2 Cor. x. 3), and "The life which I now live in the flesh
I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. ii. 20). Thus our
doings, life, and being, in works and ceremonies, are done from
the necessities of this life, and with the motive of governing
our bodies; but yet we are not justified by these things, but by
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: My home every day became more and more disagreeable to me; my
liberty was unnecessarily abridged, and my books, on the pretext
that they made me idle, taken from me. My father's mistress was
with child, and he, doating on her, allowed or overlooked her vulgar
manner of tyrannizing over us. I was indignant, especially when I
saw her endeavouring to attract, shall I say seduce? my younger
brother. By allowing women but one way of rising in the world,
the fostering the libertinism of men, society makes monsters of
them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof
of inferiority of intellect.
The wearisomeness of my situation can scarcely be described.
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