| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: after, though not quite dead.
"Now, Friday," says I, laying down the discharged pieces, and
taking up the musket which was yet loaded, "follow me," which he
did with a great deal of courage; upon which I rushed out of the
wood and showed myself, and Friday close at my foot. As soon as I
perceived they saw me, I shouted as loud as I could, and bade
Friday do so too, and running as fast as I could, which, by the
way, was not very fast, being loaded with arms as I was, I made
directly towards the poor victim, who was, as I said, lying upon
the beach or shore, between the place where they sat and the sea.
The two butchers who were just going to work with him had left him
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: and the mystery of its vision. For what, as Goethe said, is the
study of the ancients but a return to the real world (for that is
what they did); and what, said Mazzini, is mediaevalism but
individuality?
It is really from the union of Hellenism, in its breadth, its
sanity of purpose, its calm possession of beauty, with the
adventive, the intensified individualism, the passionate colour of
the romantic spirit, that springs the art of the nineteenth century
in England, as from the marriage of Faust and Helen of Troy sprang
the beautiful boy Euphorion.
Such expressions as 'classical' and 'romantic' are, it is true,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: had as yet reached her mother's ear. Accustomed to gratify her
fancies, Mademoiselle Evangelista wore cashmeres and jewels, and lived
in a style of luxury which alarmed all speculative suitors in a region
and at a period when sons were as calculating as their parents. The
fatal remark, "None but a prince can afford to marry Mademoiselle
Evangelista," circulated among the salons and the cliques. Mothers of
families, dowagers who had granddaughters to establish, young girls
jealous of Natalie, whose elegance and tyrannical beauty annoyed them,
took pains to envenom this opinion with treacherous remarks. When they
heard a possible suitor say with ecstatic admiration, as Natalie
entered a ball-room, "Heavens, how beautiful she is!" "Yes," the
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