| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: Delightful discourses upon art gave way to fervid pleas for
humanity. For the rest of his life he became a very earnest, if
not always very wise, social reformer and a passionate pleader for
what he believed to be true economic ideals.
There is nothing of all this in "The King of the Golden
River." Unlike his other works, it was written merely to entertain.
Scarcely that, since it was not written for publication at all, but
to meet a challenge set him by a young girl.
The circumstance is interesting. After taking his degree at
Oxford, Ruskin was threatened with consumption and hurried away
from the chill and damp of England to the south of Europe. After
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: A year ago! - it seems a little time
Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,
Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,
And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.
Full Spring it was - and by rich flowering vines,
Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,
I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,
The white road rang beneath my horse's feet,
And musing on Ravenna's ancient name,
I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: to go to them, who will value and protect you, and no Thessalian will give
you any trouble. Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates,
in betraying your own life when you might be saved; in acting thus you are
playing into the hands of your enemies, who are hurrying on your
destruction. And further I should say that you are deserting your own
children; for you might bring them up and educate them; instead of which
you go away and leave them, and they will have to take their chance; and if
they do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks
to you. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to
persevere to the end in their nurture and education. But you appear to be
choosing the easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been
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