| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: his dignity, for he seemed to understand that the end ennobles
every act.
"When I left this good fellow, to be house surgeon at the Hotel-
Dieu, I felt an indescribable, dull pain, knowing that he could
no longer live with me; but he comforted himself with the
prospect of saving up money enough for me to take my degree, and
he made me promise to go to see him whenever I had a day out:
Bourgeat was proud of me. He loved me for my own sake, and for
his own. If you look up my thesis, you will see that I dedicated
it to him.
"During the last year of my residence as house surgeon I earned
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: him, and had neither helmet nor shield; nor yet had he any spear,
for he had thrown all his armour from him on to the bank, and was
sweating with his struggles to get out of the river, so that his
strength was now failing him.
Then Achilles said to himself in his surprise, "What marvel do I
see here? If this man can come back alive after having been sold
over into Lemnos, I shall have the Trojans also whom I have slain
rising from the world below. Could not even the waters of the
grey sea imprison him, as they do many another whether he will or
no? This time let him taste my spear, that I may know for certain
whether mother earth who can keep even a strong man down, will be
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: deserving of death. Epaminondas (who was at that time the general at
the head of the war department) is reported to have maintained that
the Theban commander had acted far more rightly when he seized than
when he let go the prisoners. "Thanks to you," he argued, "we have
been brought into a state of war, and then you, without our advice or
opinion asked, make peace on your own account; would it not be
reasonable to retort upon you the charge of treason in such conduct?
Anyhow, be assured," he added, "we shall bring an army into Arcadia,
and along with those who share our views carry on the war which we
have undertaken."
V
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