| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: I am right in asking, I hope that you will be ready to grant.
SOCRATES: Certainly, Critias, we will grant your request, and we will
grant the same by anticipation to Hermocrates, as well as to you and
Timaeus; for I have no doubt that when his turn comes a little while hence,
he will make the same request which you have made. In order, then, that he
may provide himself with a fresh beginning, and not be compelled to say the
same things over again, let him understand that the indulgence is already
extended by anticipation to him. And now, friend Critias, I will announce
to you the judgment of the theatre. They are of opinion that the last
performer was wonderfully successful, and that you will need a great deal
of indulgence before you will be able to take his place.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Thy merited reward, the first assay
Of this right hand provoked, since first that tongue,
Inspired with contradiction, durst oppose
A third part of the Gods, in synod met
Their deities to assert; who, while they feel
Vigour divine within them, can allow
Omnipotence to none. But well thou comest
Before thy fellows, ambitious to win
From me some plume, that thy success may show
Destruction to the rest: This pause between,
(Unanswered lest thou boast) to let thee know,
 Paradise Lost |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: 'There, you see, friend, I was going to perish. And you would
have been frozen, and I should have . . .'
But again his jaws began to quiver and his eyes to fill with
tears, and he could say no more.
'Well, never mind,' he thought. 'I know about myself what I
know.'
He remained silent and lay like that for a long time.
Nikita kept him warm from below and his fur coats from above.
Only his hands, with which he kept his coat-skirts down round
Nikita's sides, and his legs which the wind kept uncovering,
began to freeze, especially his right hand which had no glove.
 Master and Man |