| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
"Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the
most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, near the
persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores,
and all things were quite ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal
palace.
Leaving the palace and passing out across the three harbours, you came to a
wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere
distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed the
whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to the sea.
The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the
largest of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: pastor made to his flock overcame him so much that he stopped and said
no more, except to invite all present to fervent prayer.
Though this scene was not of a nature to surprise a priest, Gabriel de
Rastignac was too young not to be profoundly touched by it. As yet he
had never exercised the priestly virtues; he knew himself called to
other functions; he was not forced to enter the social breaches where
the heart bleeds at the sight of woes: his mission was that of the
higher clergy, who maintain the spirit of devotion, represent the
highest intellect of the Church, and on eminent occasions display the
priestly virtues on a larger stage,--like the illustrious bishops of
Marseille and Meaux, and the archbishops of Arles and Cambrai.
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