| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: distinction, he was prepared to be sudden and quick at quarrel with any
one who might hint that he had personal reasons for that assertion--
that there was anything in his blood, his bearing, or his character
to which he gave the mask of an opinion. When he was under an
irritating impression of this kind he would go about for days with a
defiant look, the color changing in his transparent skin as if he were
on the qui vive, watching for something which he had to dart upon.
This expression was peculiarly noticeable in him at the sale,
and those who had only seen him in his moods of gentle oddity
or of bright enjoyment would have been struck with a contrast.
He was not sorry to have this occasion for appearing in public
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: which time they spawn; but quickly grow to be in season. He is able to
live in the strongest swifts of the water: and, in summer, they love the
shallowest and sharpest streams: and love to lurk under weeds, and to
feed on gravel, against a rising ground; and will root and dig in the
sands with his nose like a hog, and there nests himself: yet sometimes
he retires to deep and swift bridges, or flood-gates, or weir; where he
will nest himself amongst piles, or in hollow places; and take such hold
of moss or weeds, that be the water never so swift, it is not able to force
him from the place that he contends for. This is his constant custom in
summer, when he and most living creatures sport themselves in the sun:
but at the approach of winter, then he forsakes the swift streams and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: taught, is now eager to prove it to be anything rather than knowledge; and
if this is true, it must be quite incapable of being taught.' Now I,
Protagoras, perceiving this terrible confusion of our ideas, have a great
desire that they should be cleared up. And I should like to carry on the
discussion until we ascertain what virtue is, whether capable of being
taught or not, lest haply Epimetheus should trip us up and deceive us in
the argument, as he forgot us in the story; I prefer your Prometheus to
your Epimetheus, for of him I make use, whenever I am busy about these
questions, in Promethean care of my own life. And if you have no
objection, as I said at first, I should like to have your help in the
enquiry.
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