| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: will indulge the whim and let me do so unmolested, and even settle
a reasonable allowance on me, provided I will immediately deliver
up his son. But heaven help me! I am not going to sell my child
for gold, though it were to save both him and me from starving: it
would be better that he should die with me than that he should live
with his father.
Frederick showed me a letter he had received from that gentleman,
full of cool impudence such as would astonish any one who did not
know him, but such as, I am convinced, none would know better how
to answer than my brother. He gave me no account of his reply,
except to tell me that he had not acknowledged his acquaintance
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his
belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cut-
lass at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes,
his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones
on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings,
"It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate! -- the Black Avenger of
the Spanish Main!"
Yes, it was settled; his career was determined.
He would run away from home and enter upon it.
He would start the very next morning. Therefore
he must now begin to get ready. He would collect
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: reverse, in reference to the use and purpose of a horse? So, I say,
must a man in like manner interrogate his own nature in reference to a
man's requirements, and learn to know his own capacities, must he not?
Euth. Yes, so it strikes me: he who knows not his own ability knows
not himself.
Soc. And this too is plain, is it not: that through self-knowledge men
meet with countless blessings, and through ignorance of themselves
with many evils? Because, the man who knows himself knows what is
advantageous to himself; he discerns the limits of his powers, and by
doing what he knows, he provides himself with what he needs and so
does well; or, conversely, by holding aloof from what he knows not, he
The Memorabilia |
