| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: trial, had it been feasible. Not that I disliked employment,
but the inequality of condition to which I must have submitted.
I had acquired a taste for literature, during the five years
I had lived with a literary man, occasionally conversing with
men of the first abilities of the age; and now to descend
to the lowest vulgarity, was a degree of wretchedness
not to be imagined unfelt. I had not, it is true, tasted
the charms of affection, but I had been familiar with
the graces of humanity.
"One of the gentlemen, whom I had frequently dined in company
with, while I was treated like a companion, met me in the street,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Anabasis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: give a plunge or two, and perhaps take the rest for a minute;
but he will soon know his master. He is full of spirits,
playful as can be, but there is no vice in him."
Catherine did not think the portrait a very inviting one,
but it was too late to retreat, and she was too young to own
herself frightened; so, resigning herself to her fate,
and trusting to the animal's boasted knowledge of its owner,
she sat peaceably down, and saw Thorpe sit down by her.
Everything being then arranged, the servant who stood at the
horse's head was bid in an important voice "to let him go,"
and off they went in the quietest manner imaginable,
Northanger Abbey |
