| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: but about these mercenary troops have you aught to say? Can you
suggest a means to avoid the hatred of which they are the cause? Or
will you tell me that a ruler who has won the affection of his
subjects has no need for body-guards?
Nay, in good sooth (replied Simonides), distinctly he will need them
none the less. I know it is with certain human beings as with horses,
some trick of the blood they have, some inborn tendency; the more
their wants are satisfied, the more their wantonness will out. Well
then, to sober and chastise wild spirits, there is nothing like the
terror of your men-at-arms.[1] And as to gentler natures,[2] I do not
know by what means you could bestow so many benefits upon them as by
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: Struck with this reflection, he sat down to muse, and remembered
that since he first resolved to escape from his confinement, the
sun had passed twice over him in his annual course. He now felt a
degree of regret with which he had never been before acquainted.
He considered how much might have been done in the time which had
passed, and left nothing real behind it. He compared twenty months
with the life of man. "In life," said he, "is not to be counted
the ignorance of infancy or imbecility of age. We are long before
we are able to think, and we soon cease from the power of acting.
The true period of human existence may be reasonably estimated at
forty years, of which I have mused away the four-and-twentieth
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity? 760
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.
'So in thyself thyself art made away;
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife, 764
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,
Or butcher-sire that reeves his son of life.
Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,
But gold that's put to use more gold begets.' 768
'Nay then,' quoth Adon, 'you will fall again
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