| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: in a whisper, as he drew his stool close to him and jogged him with
his elbow, 'what a interesting blade he is! He wants as much
holding in as a thorough-bred bulldog. If it hadn't been for me
to-day, he'd have had that 'ere Roman down, and made a riot of it,
in another minute.'
'And why not?' cried Hugh in a surly voice, as he overheard this
last remark. 'Where's the good of putting things off? Strike
while the iron's hot; that's what I say.'
'Ah!' retorted Dennis, shaking his head, with a kind of pity for
his friend's ingenuous youth; 'but suppose the iron an't hot,
brother! You must get people's blood up afore you strike, and have
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Oh trouble not these souls in quiet placed,
Oh be not cruel as thy heart is bold,
Pardon these ghosts deprived of heavenly light,
With spirits dead why should men living fight?"
XL
This found he graven in the tender rind,
And while he mused on this uncouth writ,
Him thought he heard the softly whistling wind
His blasts amid the leaves and branches knit
And frame a sound like speech of human kind,
But full of sorrow grief and woe was it,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: it and was glad, and turned the gift to good account. At his feet sat
many a disciple, to whom he taught the mystery of hunting and of
chivalry[3]--to wit, Cephalus, Asclepius, Melanion, Nestor,
Amphiaraus, Peleus, Telamon, Meleager, Theseus and Hippolytus,
Palamedes, Odysseus, Menestheus, Diomed, Castor and Polydeuces,
Machaon and Podaleirius, Antilochus, Aeneas and Achilles: of whom each
in his turn was honoured by the gods. And let none marvel that of
these the greater part, albeit well-pleasing to the gods, nevertheless
were subject to death--which is the way of nature,[4] but their fame
has grown--nor yet that their prime of manhood so far differed. The
lifetime of Cheiron sufficed for all his scholars; the fact being that
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