| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: the progress of a young lord's attempt to break the bank at Monte
Carlo. A few days sooner Mrs Warren would have been crowded out
of their papers by an exceptionally abominable police case. I do
not suggest that the police case should have been suppressed; but
neither do I believe that regard for public morality had anything
to do with their failure to grapple with the performance by the
Stage Society. And, after all, there was no need to fall back on
Silas Wegg's subterfuge. Several critics saved the faces of
their papers easily enough by the simple expedient of saying all
they had to say in the tone of a shocked governess lecturing a
naughty child. To them I might plead, in Mrs Warren's words,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: that sort of thing 'going in for strawberries.' By the way, I have a
splendid piece of fish and some caviare with me. 'Tis all I HAVE
brought back! In fact it is a lucky chance that I happened to buy the
stuff before my money was gone. Where are you for?"
"I am about to call on a friend."
"On what friend? Let him go to the devil, and come to my place
instead."
"I cannot, I cannot. I have business to do."
"Oh, business again! I thought so!"
"But I HAVE business to do--and pressing business at that."
"I wager that you're lying. If not, tell me whom you're going to call upon."
Dead Souls |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: This girl is grieved at my habit of living almost in the garden,
and all her ideas as to the sort of life a respectable German lady
should lead have got into a sad muddle since she came to me.
The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it
as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, <5> for the news
has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book,
and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook.
But why cook when you can get some one to cook for you?
And as for sewing, the maids will hem the sheets better and
quicker than I could, and all forms of needlework of the fancy
order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
