| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: lodgings; nor did he discover his mistake until he got
into the parlour, where I was; he then bowed so
gracefully, made such a genteel apology, and looked
so manly and noble!--
CHARLOTTE
I see some folks, though it is so great an impropri-
ety, can praise a gentleman, when he happens to be
the man of their fancy. [Aside.]
MARIA
I don't know how it was,--I hope he did not think
me indelicate,--but I asked him, I believe, to sit
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: and a great deal easier to dispute it than to disprove it. But
mind this: the more we observe and study, the wider we find the
range of the automatic and instinctive principles in body, mind,
and morals, and the narrower the limits of the self-determining
conscious movement.
- I have often seen piano-forte players and singers make such
strange motions over their instruments or song-books that I wanted
to laugh at them. "Where did our friends pick up all these fine
ecstatic airs?" I would say to myself. Then I would remember My
Lady in "Marriage a la Mode," and amuse myself with thinking how
affectation was the same thing in Hogarth's time and in our own.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: that I go on now. I need not stay long; I shall not be far
away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again."
He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and
no more. "You are not going far, you say. What will be
your address, in case I wish to write to you? Or am I not to
know?"
"Oh yes--certainly. It is only in the town--High-Place
Hall!"
"Where?" said Henchard, his face stilling.
She repeated the words. He neither moved nor spoke, and
waving her hand to him in utmost friendliness she signified
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
