| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: the highest genius, who had, in former times, engaged in this inquiry,
but, as appeared to me, without success, led me to imagine it to be a work
of so much difficulty, that I would not perhaps have ventured on it so
soon had I not heard it currently rumored that I had already completed
the inquiry. I know not what were the grounds of this opinion; and, if my
conversation contributed in any measure to its rise, this must have
happened rather from my having confessed my Ignorance with greater freedom
than those are accustomed to do who have studied a little, and expounded
perhaps, the reasons that led me to doubt of many of those things that by
others are esteemed certain, than from my having boasted of any system of
philosophy. But, as I am of a disposition that makes me unwilling to be
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: her face was a shade deeper red. Mr. Gorham's nods and winks were
of no avail--speak she would, and speak she did, not so very
incoherently, after all, but very abusively. To be sure, you would
never have guessed it, if you had read the quiet and dignified
report in the papers on her side, the next day.
THEN Mrs. Whiston's patience broke down. "Mr. Speaker," she
exclaimed, starting to her feet, "I protest against this House
being compelled to listen to such a tirade as has just been
delivered. Are we to be disgraced before the world--"
"Oh, hoo! Disgraced, is it?" yelled Nelly Kirkpatrick, violently
interrupting her, "and me as dacent a woman as ever she was, or
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: making me a bow, said, I did him too much honour - and having said
that, he put on his hat and walk'd out.
Good God! said I to myself, as he went out, - and can this man be
the husband of this woman!
Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds
of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.
In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife seem to be one bone
and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body,
sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general,
to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and
wife need to do.
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