| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: but till then she must be free.
This with her was not art, but necessity; yet the most
accomplished art could have devised nothing so effectual to
hold her lover. His strong sense had always protected him from
the tricks of matchmaking mammas and their guileless maids.
Had Emilia made one effort to please him, once concealed a
dislike, once affected a preference, the spell might have been
broken. Had she been his slave, he might have become a very
unyielding or a very heedless despot. Making him her slave, she
kept him at the very height of bliss. This king of railways and
purchaser of statesmen, this man who made or wrecked the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: "for ONE morning I think you have done pretty well.
You have already ascertained Mr. Willoughby's opinion in
almost every matter of importance. You know what he thinks
of Cowper and Scott; you are certain of his estimating
their beauties as he ought, and you have received every
assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper.
But how is your acquaintance to be long supported, under such
extraordinary despatch of every subject for discourse?
You will soon have exhausted each favourite topic.
Another meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments
on picturesque beauty, and second marriages, and then
Sense and Sensibility |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: a good law; but, because of you, the Emperor Genso did great mischief in
the land. For your mind is light and frivolous; and although among so many
beautiful women there must have been some persons of pure heart, you would
look for nothing but beauty, and so betook yourself to the person most
beautiful in outward appearance. Therefore many of the female attendants
ceased altogether to think about the right way of women, and began to study
how to make themselves appear splendid in the eyes of men. And the end of
it was that the Emperor Genso died a pitiful and painful death -- all
because of your light and trifling mind. Indeed, your real character can
easily be seen from your conduct in other matters. There are trees, for
example,-- such as the evergreen-oak and the pine,-- whose leaves do not
Kwaidan |
