| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: found him there and, closing the parasol, leaned over by his side
with a remark on the increasing heat of the season. Renouard
assented and changed his position a little; the other, after a
short silence, administered unexpectedly a question which, like the
blow of a club on the head, deprived Renouard of the power of
speech and even thought, but, more cruel, left him quivering with
apprehension, not of death but of everlasting torment. Yet the
words were extremely simple.
"Something will have to be done soon. We can't remain in a state
of suspended expectation for ever. Tell me what do you think of
our chances?"
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: moved.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion,
neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything or belonging to any
one.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in
motion--upon this view too mind has no existence.
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: Do you think that sameness of condition and mode and subject
could ever exist without a principle of rest?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: and all his power and adherents that set themselves against us, and
they might easily crush us under their feet. Therefore we must consider
and take up those weapons with which Christians must be armed in order
to stand against the devil. For what do you think has hitherto
accomplished such great things, has checked or quelled the counsels,
purposes, murder, and riot of our enemies, whereby the devil thought to
crush us, together with the Gospel, except that the prayer of a few
godly men intervened like a wall of iron on our side? They should else
have witnessed a far different tragedy, namely, how the devil would
have destroyed all Germany in its own blood. But now they may
confidently deride it and make a mock of it, however, we shall
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