| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [23] I am indebted to Professor Jebb for the following suggestions
with regard to this passage: "The words {oude touto eosin, all
apothousin e}, etc., contain some corruption. The sense ought
clearly to be roughly parallel with that of the phrase used a
little before, {ouden allo pragmateuontai e}, etc. Perhaps
{apothousin} is a corruption of {apothen ousin}, and this
corruption occasioned the insertion of {e}. Probably Xenophon
wrote {oude touto eosin, all apothen ousin antipalous}, etc.:
'while the enemy is still some way off, they turn their companies
so as to face him.' The words {apothen ousin} indirectly suggest
the celerity of the Spartan movement."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: but, seeking an interview with Brutus himself alone, and finding
that he was their captain, he readily consented to partake in
the action. And among the others, also, the most and best were
gained by the name of Brutus. And, though they neither gave nor
took any oath of secrecy, nor used any other sacred rite to
assure their fidelity to each other, yet all kept their design
so close, were so wary, and held it so silently among
themselves, that, though by prophecies and apparitions and signs
in the sacrifices the gods gave warning of it, yet could it not
be believed.
Now Brutus, feeling that the noblest spirits of Rome for virtue,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: already lived through all a woman's life. But there was
something else, something hardly personal, something which
belonged to a consciousness older than the Christian, which I
realised, wondered at, and admired, in her passionate
tranquillity of mind, before which everything mean and trivial
and temporary caught fire and burnt away in smoke. Her body was
never without suffering, or her heart without conflict; but
neither the body's weakness nor the heart's violence could
disturb that fixed contemplation, as of Buddha on his
lotus-throne.
And along with this wisdom, as of age or of the age of a race,
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