| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: invented a new career for women--that of being in and out of
people's houses to look after the flowers. Mrs. Jordan had a
manner of her own of sounding this allusion; "the flowers," on her
lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, as usual as the
coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at any rate,
in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly
finding out what it was to make over this strange burden of the
pampered to the widow of a clergyman. The widow, on her side,
dilating on the initiations thus opened up to her, had been
splendid to her young friend, over the way she was made free of the
greatest houses--the way, especially when she did the dinner-
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: us dare quarrel with you now, however much we may sulk at each
other. For there's none of us, I'll warrant, but thinks that she
likes him the best of all; and so we are bound to believe that you
have drunk our healths all round."
"And so I have: and what better thing can you do, gentlemen, than
to drink each other's healths all round likewise: and so show
yourselves true gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and true lovers?
For what is love (let me speak freely to you, gentlemen and
guests), what is love, but the very inspiration of that Deity whose
name is Love? Be sure that not without reason did the ancients
feign Eros to be the eldest of the gods, by whom the jarring
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: then he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to
his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:--The Bottle-Nose Whale;
the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading
Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the
Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc.
From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English authorities, there might
be quoted other lists of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of
uncouth names. But I omit them as altogether obsolete; and can
hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism,
but signifying nothing.
Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be
Moby Dick |
