| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: remembered hearing it applied to himself when he was about twenty-
five. It may be considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing
appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the old man," and he
returns the caressing expression by speaking of her as "the old
woman." But now, said he, just suppose a case like one of these.
A young stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old
gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks of your green old
age as illustrating the truth of some axiom you had uttered with
reference to that period of life. What I call an old man is a
person with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of scattered white
hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny days, stooping as he walks,
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: dark body dropping, swift and silent, into the cold, grim sea.
Shortly after her first appearance on deck following the
tragedy, Monsieur Thuran joined her with many expressions
of kindly solicitude.
"Oh, but it is terrible, Miss Strong," he said. "I cannot rid
my mind of it."
"Nor I," said the girl wearily. "I feel that he might have
been saved had I but given the alarm."
"You must not reproach yourself, my dear Miss Strong,"
urged Monsieur Thuran. "It was in no way your fault.
Another would have done as you did. Who would think that
The Return of Tarzan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Nurse. A man young Lady, Lady, such a man as all
the world. Why hee's a man of waxe
Old La. Veronas Summer hath not such a flower
Nurse. Nay hee's a flower, infaith a very flower
Old La. What say you, can you loue the Gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our Feast,
Read ore the volume of young Paris face,
And find delight, writ there with Beauties pen:
Examine euery seuerall liniament,
And see how one another lends content:
And what obscur'd in this faire volume lies,
Romeo and Juliet |
