| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: so nearly equal; for I had thought that the majority against me would have
been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I
should have been acquitted. And I may say, I think, that I have escaped
Meletus. I may say more; for without the assistance of Anytus and Lycon,
any one may see that he would not have had a fifth part of the votes, as
the law requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine of a thousand
drachmae.
And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my
part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due?
What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle
during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: herself warm, for she felt the chill of the cave. Whenever she
approached the shaggy man he would whisper something in her ear, and
Polly would nod her pretty head as if she understood.
The shaggy man told Dorothy and Button-Bright to stand before him
while he emptied the potatoes out of one of the sacks. When this had
been secretly done, little Polychrome, dancing near to the guard,
suddenly reached out her hand and slapped his face, the next instant
whirling away from him quickly to rejoin her friends.
The angry Scoodler at once picked off his head and hurled it at the
Rainbow's Daughter; but the shaggy man was expecting that, and caught
the head very neatly, putting it in the sack, which he tied at the
The Road to Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: wrecked lives. To-day, as ever, he is ready to beguile and betray,
to smash and to drown the incorrigible optimism of men who, backed
by the fidelity of ships, are trying to wrest from him the fortune
of their house, the dominion of their world, or only a dole of food
for their hunger. If not always in the hot mood to smash, he is
always stealthily ready for a drowning. The most amazing wonder of
the deep is its unfathomable cruelty.
I felt its dread for the first time in mid-Atlantic one day, many
years ago, when we took off the crew of a Danish brig homeward
bound from the West Indies. A thin, silvery mist softened the calm
and majestic splendour of light without shadows - seemed to render
The Mirror of the Sea |
