| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and even mortifying, proceeding. Irais skates beautifully:
modesty is the only obstacle to my saying the same of myself;
but I may remark that all Germans skate well, for the simple
reason that every year of their lives, for three or four months,
they may do it as much as they like. Minora was astonished
and disconcerted by finding herself left behind, and arriving at
the place where tea meets us half an hour after we had finished.
In some places the banks of the canals are so high that only our
heads appear level with the fields, and it is, as Minora noted
in her book, a curious sight to see three female heads skimming
along apparently by themselves, and enjoying it tremendously.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: possessors and worshippers of grace and beauty here. There
will be glowing evenings, warm moonlight, distant voices
singing. . . .There is your desire, doctor, the desire you
say is the driving force of life. But reality mocks it. Boats
bump and lead to coarse ungracious quarrels; rowing can be
curiously fatiguing; punting involves dreadful indignities.
The romance here tarnishes very quickly. Romantic encounters
fail to occur; in our impatience we resort to--accosting.
Chilly mists arise from the water and the magic of distant
singing is provided, even excessively, by boatloads of cads--
with collecting dishes. When the weather keeps warm there
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: to hear you wise men talk.
SOCRATES: O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so;
but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are
wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speak the truth. For consider
what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this which I have said--a
thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of
a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same. Let us
consider this matter; is not the art of painting a whole?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there are and have been many painters good and bad?
ION: Yes.
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