| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: She answer'd,--"And you?"
"Yes."
"You do not repent?"
"No."
"Thank Heaven!" she murmur'd. He musingly bent
His looks on the sunset, and somewhat apart
Where he stood, sigh'd, as though to his innermost heart,
"O bless'd are they, amongst whom I was not,
Whose morning unclouded, without stain or spot,
Predicts a pure evening; who, sunlike, in light
Have traversed, unsullied, the world, and set bright!"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: pleadings, or that the defendant had skill to turn some charming
phrase?" Thus appealed to, Socrates replied: "Nay, solemnly I tell
you, twice already I have essayed to consider my defence, and twice
the divinity[9] hinders me"; and to the remark of Hermogenes, "That is
strange!" he answered again: "Strange, do you call it, that to God it
should seem better for me to die at once? Do you not know that up to
this moment I will not concede to any man to have lived a better life
than I have; since what can exceed the pleasure, which has been mine,
of knowing[10] that my whole life has been spent holily and justly?
And indeed this verdict of self-approval I found re-echoed in the
opinion which my friends and intimates have formed concerning me.[11]
The Apology |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: from Mr. Harcourt, Marquis of Anglesey, and Mrs. Mansfield. We go
to the former. The Queen held a levee on Friday, for gentlemen
only. Your father went, of course.
Sunday, February 21st
I left off on Sunday, on which day I got a note from Lady Morgan,
saying that she wished us to come and meet some agreeables at her
house. . . . There I met Sir William and Lady Molesworth, Sir
Benjamin Hall, etc., and had a long talk with "Eothen," who is a
quiet, unobtrusive person in manner, though his book is quite an
effervescence. . . . On Wednesday we dined with Mr. Harcourt, and
met there Lord Brougham, who did the talking chiefly, Lord and Lady
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