| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: X
It is as possessiong qualities such as these that I praise Agesilaus.
And in these matters he was not like a man who chances upon a treasure
and thereby becomes wealthier, albeit none the more skilful in
economy; nor yet like him who, when a plague has fallen upon an enemy,
wrests a victory, whereby he may add to his reputation for success,
but not for strategy. Rather was his example that of one who in each
emergency will take the lead; at a crisis where toil is needful, by
endurance; or in the battle-lists of bravery by prowess; or when the
function of the counsellor is uppermost, by the soundness of his
judgment. Of such a man I say, he has obtained by warrant indefeasible
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at his daughter, at
his daughter and at the deed, undergoing as he did so such violent
emotion that he wiped the sweat from his brow.
"My little girl," he said, "if, instead of signing this deed, which
will cost a great deal to record, you would simply agree to renounce
your rights as heir to your poor dear, deceased mother's property, and
would trust to me for the future, I should like it better. In that
case I will pay you monthly the good round sum of a hundred francs.
See, now, you could pay for as many masses as you want for anybody--
Hein! a hundred francs a month--in /livres/?"
"I will do all you wish, father."
Eugenie Grandet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: And only ghosts of gods and wraiths may meet
the backward-gazer's view.
Where, where the faiths of yesterday? Ah,
whither vanished, whither gone?
Say, what Apollos drive to-day adown the flaming
slopes of dawn?
Oh, does the blank past hide from view forgotten
Christs, to be reborn,
The future tremble where some new Messiah-
Memnon sings the morn?
Of all the worlds, say any earth, like dust wind-
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