| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: have deserved, they must persuade themselves to submit. Under the figure
there lurks a real thought, which, expressed in another form, admits of an
easy application to ourselves. For do not we too accuse as well as excuse
ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric of prayer and preaching,
which the mind silently employs while the struggle between the better and
the worse is going on within us. And sometimes we are too hard upon
ourselves, because we want to restore the balance which self-love has
overthrown or disturbed; and then again we may hear a voice as of a parent
consoling us. In religious diaries a sort of drama is often enacted by the
consciences of men 'accusing or else excusing them.' For all our life long
we are talking with ourselves:--What is thought but speech? What is
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: As we came out of the Stylites Arms, Poirot drew me aside by a
gentle pressure of the arm. I understood his object. He was
waiting for the Scotland Yard men.
In a few moments, they emerged, and Poirot at once stepped
forward, and accosted the shorter of the two.
"I fear you do not remember me, Inspector Japp."
"Why, if it isn't Mr. Poirot!" cried the Inspector. He turned to
the other man. "You've heard me speak of Mr. Poirot? It was in
1904 he and I worked together--the Abercrombie forgery case--you
remember, he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were great
days, moosier. Then, do you remember 'Baron' Altara? There was a
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: joyfulness of their old age. The ware-room of the "entresol" separated
him from the rooms on the ground-floor. The captain therefore could
not have recourse to noises significantly made from one floor to the
other, an artificial language which all lovers know well how to
create. But chance, or it may have been the young girl herself, came
to his assistance. At the moment when he stationed himself at his
window, he saw, on the black wall of the courtyard, a circle of light,
in the centre of which the silhouette of Juana was clearly defined;
the consecutive movement of the arms, and the attitude, gave evidence
that she was arranging her hair for the night.
"Is she alone?" Montefiore asked himself; "could I, without danger,
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