| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: Half-past ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of
weariness, and looked at his fellow-travellers in general. Their
faces were certainly not worth looking at. The expression
'Waiting' was written upon them so absolutely that nothing more
could be discerned there. All animation was suspended till
Providence should raise the water and let them go.
'I have been thinking,' said Knight, 'that we have come amongst
the rarest class of people in the kingdom. Of all human
characteristics, a low opinion of the value of his own time by an
individual must be among the strangest to find. Here we see
numbers of that patient and happy species. Rovers, as distinct
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: His first attention was given to the question, privately
considered, of whether one of the two younger men would be Henry
St. George. He knew many of his distinguished contemporaries by
their photographs, but had never, as happened, seen a portrait of
the great misguided novelist. One of the gentlemen was
unimaginable - he was too young; and the other scarcely looked
clever enough, with such mild undiscriminating eyes. If those eyes
were St. George's the problem, presented by the ill-matched parts
of his genius would be still more difficult of solution. Besides,
the deportment of their proprietor was not, as regards the lady in
the red dress, such as could be natural, toward the wife of his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: camps, the rival parties train for victory. One day the superiority
shall be theirs; or, in the day of need, one and all to the last man,
they will be ready to aid the fatherland with all their strength.
Necessity, moreover, is laid upon them to study a good habit of the
body, coming as they do to blows with their fists for very strife's
sake whenever they meet. Albeit, any one present has a right to
separate the combatants, and, if obedience is not shown to the
peacemaker, the Pastor of youth[4] hales the delinquent before the
ephors, and the ephors inflict heavy damages, since they will have it
plainly understood that rage must never override obedience to law.
[4] Lit. "the Paidonomos."
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