| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: sole exception, endures indissolubly their kingship.[2]
[2] See "Cyrop." I. i. 1.
And next in token of an aptitude for kingship seen in Agesilaus,
before even he entered upon office, I note these signs. On the death
of Agis, king of Lacedaemon, there were rival claimants to the throne.
Leotychides claimed the succession as being the son of Agis, and
Agesilaus as the son of Archidamus. But the verdict of Lacedaemon
favoured Agesilaus as being in point of family and virtue
unimpeachable,[3] and so they set him on the throne. And yet, in this
princeliest of cities so to be selected by the noblest citizens as
worthy of highest privilege, argues, methinks conclusively, an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: Lion at Willingdon, complaining to anyone who would listen of the
monstrous injustice he had suffered in being turned out of his property by
a pack of good-for-nothing animals. The other farmers sympathised in
principle, but they did not at first give him much help. At heart, each of
them was secretly wondering whether he could not somehow turn Jones's
misfortune to his own advantage. It was lucky that the owners of the two
farms which adjoined Animal Farm were on permanently bad terms. One of
them, which was named Foxwood, was a large, neglected, old-fashioned farm,
much overgrown by woodland, with all its pastures worn out and its hedges
in a disgraceful condition. Its owner, Mr. Pilkington, was an easy-going
gentleman farmer who spent most of his time in fishing or hunting
Animal Farm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: flames. Babbitt tried to dance with her. He shuffled along the floor, too
bulky to be guided, his steps unrelated to the rhythm of the jungle music, and
in his staggering he would have fallen, had she not held him with supple
kindly strength. He was blind and deaf from prohibition-era alcohol; he could
not see the tables, the faces. But he was overwhelmed by the girl and her
young pliant warmth.
When she had firmly returned him to his group, he remembered, by a connection
quite untraceable, that his mother's mother had been Scotch, and with head
thrown back, eyes closed, wide mouth indicating ecstasy, he sang, very slowly
and richly, "Loch Lomond."
But that was the last of his mellowness and jolly companionship. The man from
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