| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: All power, and us eclipsed under the name
Of King anointed, for whom all this haste
Of midnight-march, and hurried meeting here,
This only to consult how we may best,
With what may be devised of honours new,
Receive him coming to receive from us
Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile!
Too much to one! but double how endured,
To one, and to his image now proclaimed?
But what if better counsels might erect
Our minds, and teach us to cast off this yoke?
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: who was his comrade to persuade Megabates again to honour him with his
regard; and the comrade, so appealed to, demanding, "If I persuade
him, will you bestow on him a kiss?" Agesilaus fell into a silence,
but presently exclaimed: "No, by the Twins, not if I might this very
instant become the swiftest-footed, strongest, and handsomest of
men.[6] And as to that battle I swear by all the gods I would far
rather fight it over again than that everything on which I set my eyes
might turn to gold."[7]
[3] See Plut. "Ages." (Clough, iv. p. 13 foll.)
[4] Reading, {kai lian gennikon}; or, "a refinement of self-respect,"
"a self-respect perhaps even over-sensitive."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred their
feet, and even swung their muskets in time. A young officer on
horseback had hard ado to keep his countenance at the words. You
never saw anything so cheerful and spontaneous as their gait;
schoolboys do not look more eagerly at hare and hounds; and you
would have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers.
My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I doted upon the
town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted,
and gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score of
architectural fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted;
and in a great square panel in the centre, in black relief on a
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