| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: This stood out clearer for the very reason that, the night of his
desperate appeal to his patrons, he had seen fully for the first
time where he was. Wasn't it another proof of the success with
which those patrons practised their arts that they had managed to
avert for so long the illuminating flash? It descended on our
friend with a breadth of effect which perhaps would have struck a
spectator as comical, after he had returned to his little servile
room, which looked into a close court where a bare dirty opposite
wall took, with the sound of shrill clatter, the reflexion of
lighted back windows. He had simply given himself away to a band
of adventurers. The idea, the word itself, wore a romantic horror
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: Minister, the Lord Chief Baron," etc., etc. (enumerating about a
dozen of the most distinguished guests), "and ladies and gentlemen
all, the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress do bid you most heartily
welcome and invite you to drink in a loving cup." Whereupon the
Mayor and Mayoress rise and each turn to their next neighbor, who
take off the cover while they drink. After my right-hand neighbor,
the Lord Mayor-elect, had put on the cover, he turns to me and says,
"Please take off the cover," which I do and hold it while he drinks;
then I replace the cover and turn round to Mr. Bancroft, who rises
and performs the same office for me while I drink; then he turns to
his next neighbor, who takes off the cover for him. I have not felt
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: "Ah, I saved her from a real bad marriage, and she's
never been the one to thank me."
"I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride," said
Nance.
"True," said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. "'Tis as good a
ground for a skimmity-ride as ever I knowed; and it ought
not to be wasted. The last one seen in Casterbridge must
have been ten years ago, if a day."
At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady
said to the man who had been called Charl, "'Tis Jim coming
in. Would ye go and let down the bridge for me?"
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
