| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: Master of Balliol College
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford
Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: turned to the right, sometimes to the left. The maze seemed to
be endless. Once or twice I wondered whether she had lost her
way, and was merely seeking to return. But her steady,
purposeful gait, her measured pace, forbade the idea. I noticed,
too, that she seldom looked behind her--rarely to right or left.
Once the ride down which she passed was carpeted not with green,
but with the silvery, sheeny leaves of some creeping plant that
in the distance had a shimmer like that of water at evening. As
she trod this, with her face to the low sun, her tall grey figure
had a pure air that for the moment startled me--she looked
unearthly. Then I swore in scorn of myself, and at the next
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: the careless childhood, the loveless marriage, a terrible passion,
flowers springing up in storm and struck down by the thunderbolt into
an abyss from which there is no return.
"Darling mother," Louis said at last, "why do you hide your pain from
me?"
"My boy, we ought to hide our troubles from strangers," she said; "we
should show them a smiling face, never speak of ourselves to them, nor
think about ourselves; and these rules, put in practice in family
life, conduce to its happiness. You will have much to bear one day! Ah
me! then think of your poor mother who died smiling before your eyes,
hiding her sufferings from you, and you will take courage to endure
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