| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: it soon became whispered, and then openly discussed in
Casterbridge that the masterful, coercive Mayor of the town
was raptured and enervated by the genteel widow Mrs. Newson.
His well-known haughty indifference to the society of
womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the sex,
contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an
unromantic matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman
should be his choice was inexplicable, except on the ground
that the engagement was a family affair in which sentimental
passion had no place; for it was known that they were
related in some way. Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: But no representations on their part were of any avail.
Hector Servadac was inflexible.
"No concession is possible," he replied, resolutely. "Rossini has
been deeply injured, and I cannot suffer the injury to be unavenged.
Wagner is a fool. I shall keep my word. I am quite firm."
"Be it so, then," replied one of the officers; "and after all,
you know, a sword-cut need not be a very serious affair."
"Certainly not," rejoined Servadac; "and especially in my case,
when I have not the slightest intention of being wounded at all."
Incredulous as they naturally were as to the assigned cause of the quarrel,
Servadac's friends had no alternative but to accept his explanation,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: thousands who, whenever you form a judgment, take up arms against you and
are of an opposite judgment and opinion, deeming that you judge falsely?
THEODORUS: Yes, indeed, Socrates, thousands and tens of thousands, as
Homer says, who give me a world of trouble.
SOCRATES: Well, but are we to assert that what you think is true to you
and false to the ten thousand others?
THEODORUS: No other inference seems to be possible.
SOCRATES: And how about Protagoras himself? If neither he nor the
multitude thought, as indeed they do not think, that man is the measure of
all things, must it not follow that the truth of which Protagoras wrote
would be true to no one? But if you suppose that he himself thought this,
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