| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they
needed, both in the city and country. For because of the greatness of
their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and
the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses
of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be
found there, solid as well as fusile, and that which is now only a name and
was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth
in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than
anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood for carpenter's work,
and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were
a great number of elephants in the island; for as there was provision for
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: the soldiers had seen her work a cure upon a wounded
man, brought with them to the castle of Torquilstone.
She did, he said, make certain signs
upon the wound, and repeated certain mysterious
words, which he blessed God he understood not,
when the iron head of a square cross-bow bolt disengaged
itself from the wound, the bleeding was
stanched, the wound was closed, and the dying
man was, within a quarter of an hour, walking
upon the ramparts, and assisting the witness in
managing a mangonel, or machine for hurling
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: to the ball. He was fast asleep.
"Have you been here all the time?" she asked.
"Yes, madame."
As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her
coachman was drunk--so drunk, that at any other time she would
have been afraid; but after a great crisis in life, fear loses
its appetite for common food. She reached home, at any rate,
without accident; but even there she felt a change in herself, a
new feeling that she could not shake off. For her, there was now
but one man in the world; which is to say that henceforth she
cared to shine for his sake alone.
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