| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.
And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let Desire pass across dread Charon's icy ford.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: each landing, it was impossible to wander, and I had nothing to
do but descend the stairs until I saw the glimmer of the porter's
night light. I counted four flights: no porter. It was possible, of
course, that I had reckoned incorrectly; so I went down another
and another, and another, still counting as I went, until I had
reached the preposterous figure of nine flights. It was now
quite clear that I had somehow passed the porter's lodge
without remarking it; indeed, I was, at the lowest figure, five
pairs of stairs below the street, and plunged in the very bowels
of the earth. That my hotel should thus be founded upon
catacombs was a discovery of considerable interest; and if I had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: whether you really believe that they are true.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates; and things more wonderful still, of which the
world is in ignorance.
SOCRATES: And do you really believe that the gods fought with one
another, and had dire quarrels, battles, and the like, as the poets
say, and as you may see represented in the works of great artists? The
temples are full of them; and notably the robe of Athene, which is
carried up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaea, is embroidered
with them. Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates; and, as I was saying, I can tell you, if you
would like to hear them, many other things about the gods which
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