| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: And so of the virtues, however many and different they may be,
they have all a common nature which makes them virtues; and on this he who
would answer the question, 'What is virtue?' would do well to have his eye
fixed: Do you understand?
MENO: I am beginning to understand; but I do not as yet take hold of the
question as I could wish.
SOCRATES: When you say, Meno, that there is one virtue of a man, another
of a woman, another of a child, and so on, does this apply only to virtue,
or would you say the same of health, and size, and strength? Or is the
nature of health always the same, whether in man or woman?
MENO: I should say that health is the same, both in man and woman.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: The mother owls heard him as he passed near a wood and stuck their
heads out of the hollow places in the tree-trunks; but when they saw
who it was they whispered to the owlets nestling near them that it was
only Santa Claus carrying toys to the children. It is strange how
much those mother owls know.
Claus stopped at some of the scattered farmhouses and climbed down the
chimneys to leave presents for the babies. Soon after he reached a
village and worked merrily for an hour distributing playthings among the
sleeping little ones. Then away again he went, signing his joyous carol:
"Now away we go
O'er the gleaming snow,
 The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: narrow forehead, bushing brows, and sharply-cut mouth and chin
of a soldier grown old in the contemplation of portraits
of the Duke of Wellington. His face and neck were of a
dull reddish tint, which seemed at first sight uniformly
distributed: one saw afterward that it approached pallor
at the veined temples, and ripened into purple in minute
patches on the cheeks and the tip of the pointed nose.
Against this flushed skin, the closely-cropped hair
and small, neatly-waxed moustache were very white indeed.
It was a thin, lined, care-worn face, withal, which in repose,
and particularly in profile, produced an effect of dignified
 The Market-Place |