| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: sorrow; while his daughter at once wept for her brother, and
endeavoured to mitigate and soothe the despair of her father.
But this was impossible; the old man's only tie to life was rent
rudely asunder, and his heart had broken with it. The death of
his son had no part in his sorrow. If he thought of him at all,
it was as the degenerate boy through whom the honour of his
country and clan had been lost; and he died in the course of
three days, never even mentioning his name, but pouring out
unintermitted lamentations for the loss of his noble sword.
I conceive that the moment when the disabled chief was roused
into a last exertion by the agony of the moment is favourable to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: Enter a Gentleman.
Alb. What news?
Gent. O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall 's dead,
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.
Alb. Gloucester's eyes?
Gent. A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse,
Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enrag'd,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead;
But not without that harmful stroke which since
King Lear |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth
Street but touches his hat as he passes; and he is considered
quite a patron at the coach-office of the Goose and Gridiron,
St. Paul's churchyard. His family have been very urgent for
him to make an expedition to Margate, but he has great doubts
of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, and indeed thinks
himself too advanced in life to undertake sea-voyages.
Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and
party spirit ran very high at one time in consequence of two
rival "Burial Societies" being set up in the place. One held its
meeting at the Swan and Horse Shoe, and was patronized by the
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