| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: after man was slain. When, however, the top of the pass was reached,
there stood the hoplites of the Acarnanians drawn up in battle line,
and supported by the mass of their light infantry. There they steadily
waited, keeping up a continuous discharge of missiles the while, or
launching their long spears; whereby they dealt wounds to the cavalry
troopers and death in some cases to the horses. But when they were all
but within the clutches of the advancing heavy infantry[8] of the
Lacedaemonians their firmness forsook them; they swerved and fled, and
there died of them on that day about three hundred. So ended the
affair.
[7] I.e. "the first two ranks." See above, IV. v. 14.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: with a severe expression, and rubbing his downy unshaven chin.
They were both on a slanting floor of crimson padding, and above
them was an opening like a long, low cellar flap that Bert by an
effort perceived to be the cabin door in a half-inverted
condition. The whole cabin had in fact turned on its side.
"What the deuce do you mean by it, Smallways?" said Kurt,
"jumping out of that locker when I was certain you had gone
overboard with the rest of them? Where have you been?"
"What's up?" asked Bert.
"This end of the airship is up. Most other things are down."
"Was there a battle?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: lamplighter who touches into flame, one by one, a long row of gas-
jets. Marcher flattered himself the illumination was brilliant,
yet he was really still more pleased on her showing him, with
amusement, that in his haste to make everything right he had got
most things rather wrong. It hadn't been at Rome--it had been at
Naples; and it hadn't been eight years before--it had been more
nearly ten. She hadn't been, either, with her uncle and aunt, but
with her mother and brother; in addition to which it was not with
the Pembles HE had been, but with the Boyers, coming down in their
company from Rome--a point on which she insisted, a little to his
confusion, and as to which she had her evidence in hand. The
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