| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: small capacity he did not long retain in his establishment; whereas
those who possessed exceptional talent he put through an extra course
of schooling. This senior class--a class composed of
specially-selected pupils--was a very different affair from what
usually obtains in other colleges. Only when a boy had attained its
ranks did Alexander demand of him what other masters indiscreetly
require of mere infants--namely the superior frame of mind which,
while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear ridicule, and
disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress itself, and
eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity of soul.
In short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: better go thither with a diving bell, and fish up Talus.
On the homeward voyage, the fourteen youths and damsels were in
excellent spirits, as you will easily suppose. They spent most
of their time in dancing, unless when the sidelong breeze made
the deck slope too much. In due season, they came within sight
of the coast of Attica, which was their native country. But
here, I am grieved to tell you, happened a sad misfortune.
You will remember (what Theseus unfortunately forgot) that his
father, King Aegeus, had enjoined it upon him to hoist sunshiny
sails, instead of black ones, in case he should overcome the
Minotaur, and return victorious. In the joy of their success,
Tanglewood Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up
abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin
male children; and dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions, he
gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the
surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king
over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many
men, and a large territory. And he named them all; the eldest, who was the
first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean
were called Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and
obtained as his lot the extremity of the island towards the pillars of
Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in
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