| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: observed in Alexandria 300 years after, during the age of the Antonines.
I mean, of course, the famous Ptolemy, whose name so long bore the
honour of that system which really belonged to Hipparchus.
This single fact speaks volumes for the real weakness of the great
artificial school of literature and science founded by the kings of
Egypt. From the father of Astronomy, as Delambre calls him, to Ptolemy,
the first man who seems really to have appreciated him, we have not a
discovery, hardly an observation or a name, to fill the gap. Physical
sages there were; but they were geometers and mathematicians, rather
than astronomic observers and inquirers. And in spite of all the huge
appliances and advantages of that great Museum, its inhabitants were
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: a fortress,
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took
courage.
Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of terror,
Thanking God in her heart that she had not married Miles
Standish;
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his battles,
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his
valor.
VIII
THE SPINNING-WHEEL
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: mesh of the net, how to regain the old position, how to prevent
discovery? If there were only some way, some vast, superhuman
effort by which he could rise in his old strength once more,
crushing Lyman with one hand, Genslinger with the other, and for
one more moment, the last, to stand supreme again, indomitable,
the leader; then go to his death, triumphant at the end, his
memory untarnished, his fame undimmed. But the plague-spot was
in himself, knitted forever into the fabric of his being. Though
Genslinger should be silenced, though Lyman should be crushed,
though even the League should overcome the Railroad, though he
should be the acknowledged leader of a resplendent victory, yet
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