| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: placed as you are amidst human beings, if you purpose neither to rule
nor to be ruled, and do not mean to dance attendance, if you can help
it, on those who rule, you must surely see that the stronger have an
art to seat the weaker on the stool of repentance[17] both in public
and in private, and to treat them as slaves. I daresay you have not
failed to note this common case: a set of people has sown and planted,
whereupon in comes another set and cuts their corn and fells their
fruit-trees, and in every way lays siege to them because, though
weaker, they refuse to pay them proper court, till at length they are
persuaded to accept slavery rather than war against their betters. And
in private life also, you will bear me out, the brave and powerful are
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties
of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.
Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found,
to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted
to see all I could of the ways of the country.
I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced
a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--
white undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back,
of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty.
When I came close she bowed and said, "The Herr Englishman?"
"Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker."
Dracula |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: parson. Occasionally he would take wife and son to task for
negligence in the duties of religion, peremptorily insisting that
they should carry out to the letter the obligations imposed upon
the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was never so well
pleased as when he had set the courtly Abbot discussing some case
of conscience with Dona Elvira and Felipe.
At length, however, despite the prodigious care that the great
magnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the days of
decrepitude came upon him, and with those days the constant
importunity of physical feebleness, an importunity all the more
distressing by contrast with the wealth of memories of his
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