| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: Going on faster than we are."
"Why, yes," said the Rector, taking up the newspaper. "Here is
the `Trumpet' accusing you of lagging behind--did you see?"
"Eh? no," said Mr. Brooke, dropping his gloves into his hat
and hastily adjusting his eye-glass. But Mr. Cadwallader kept
the paper in his hand, saying, with a smile in his eyes--
"Look here! all this is about a landlord not a hundred
miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own rents.
They say he is the most retrogressive man in the county.
I think you must have taught them that word in the `Pioneer.'"
"Oh, that is Keek--an illiterate fellow, you know. Retrogressive, now!
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: proved themselves the men they should be. He had only to look around
to see what wherever the spirit of emulation[2] is most deeply seated,
there, too, their choruses and gymnastic contests will present alike a
far higher charm to eye and ear. And on the same principle he
persuaded himself that he needed only to confront[3] his youthful
warriors in the strife of valour, and with like result. They also, in
their degree, might be expected to attain to some unknown height of
manly virtue.
[1] See "Hell." V. iv. 32.
[2] Cf. "Cyrop." II. i. 22.
[3] Or, "pit face to face."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Of traitorous friend and broken system made
No purple in the distance, mystery,
Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell;
These men are hard upon us as of old,
We two must part: and yet how fain was I
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think
I might be something to thee, when I felt
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast
In the dead prime: but may thy mother prove
As true to thee as false, false, false to me!
And, if thou needs must needs bear the yoke, I wish it
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