| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: rival him.
[31] For Menestheus, who led the Athenians against Troy, cf. Hom.
"Il." ii. 552; iv. 327; Philostr. "Her." ii. 16; Paus. ii. 25. 6;
i. 17. 6; Plut. "Thes." 32, 35.
[32] Or, "so runs the tale," e.g. in "The Catalogue." See "Il." ii.
l.c.: {Nestor oios erizen}, "Only Nestor rivalled him, for he was
the elder by birth" (W. Leaf).
Odysseus and Diomedes[33] were brilliant for many a single deed of
arms, and mainly to these two was due the taking of Troy town.[34]
[33] The two heroes are frequently coupled in Homer, e.g. "Il." v.
519; x. 241, etc.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: Heedless of any risks, she crept up quite close up to where
Chauvelin stood, surrounded by his little troop: he had descended from
the cart, and was giving some orders to the men. These she wanted to
hear: what little chance she yet had, of being useful to Percy,
consisted in hearing absolutely every word of his enemy's plans.
The spot where all the party had halted must have lain some
eight hundred meters from the coast; the sound of the sea came only
very faintly, as from a distance. Chauvelin and Desgas, followed by
the soldiers, had turned off sharply to the right of the road,
apparently on to the footpath, which led to the cliffs. The Jew had
remained on the road, with his cart and nag.
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: generation. And this is surely the more notable where the
names are all so strange, and even the family names appear to
have been coined. At one time, at least, the ancestors of
all these Alvins and Alvas, Loveinas, Lovelands, and
Breedloves, must have taken serious council and found a
certain poetry in these denominations; that must have been,
then, their form of literature. But still times change; and
their next descendants, the George Washingtons and Daniel
Websters, will at least be clear upon the point. And anyway,
and however his name should be spelt, this Irvine Lovelands
was the most unmitigated Caliban I ever knew.
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