| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: Who that is bore in special,
Of good will and of liberal
He schal be founde in alle place,
And also stonde in mochel grace
Toward the lordes forto serve
And gret profit and thonk deserve. 880
And over that it causeth yit
A man to be soubtil of wit
To worche in gold, and to be wys
In every thing which is of pris.
Bot forto speken in what cost
Confessio Amantis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: what an [Greek text: omphalosgees], a centre of the world, this
Alexandria is, and perhaps arouse in your minds, as it has often done in
mine, the suspicion that it has not yet fulfilled its whole destiny, but
may become at any time a prize for contending nations, or the centre of
some world-wide empire to come. Communicating with Europe and the
Levant by the Mediterranean, with India by the Red Sea, certain of
boundless supplies of food from the desert-guarded valley of the Nile,
to which it formed the only key, thus keeping all Egypt, as it were, for
its own private farm, it was weak only on one side, that of Judea. That
small strip of fertile mountain land, containing innumerable military
positions from which an enemy might annoy Egypt, being, in fact, one
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: sat down on my saddle on the trap-door, and, by the last
flickering light of a candle which I had taken from my
bag, gloated over my treasure--a treasure worthy of
fabled Golconda.
Hardly could I believe in its reality, even now.
Recalling the jewels which the English Duke of
Buckingham wore on the occasion of his visit to Paris in
1625, and whereof there was so much talk, I took these
to be as fine, though less in number. They should be
worth fifteen thousand crowns, more or less. Fifteen
thousand crowns! And I held them in the hollow of my
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