| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: permitted to call his own. The partial existence of such customs among
some of the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in
the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of
similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question
that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views
respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about
the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge
shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which
written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man
two thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when
removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 years, when the majority of
 The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.
Here comes the rogue.
[Enter BIONDELLO.]
Sirrah, where have you been?
BIONDELLO.
Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stol'n your clothes?
Or you stol'n his? or both? Pray, what's the news?
LUCENTIO.
Sirrah, come hither: 'tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
 The Taming of the Shrew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: great and wealthy noble. It matters not. Love or
ambition, I shall marry this Russian or I shall never
marry at all."
"Mother of God! Mother of God!" Don Jose's
face was purple. The veins swelled in his neck. He
was the more wroth because he recognized his own
daughter and his own handiwork, because he saw
that he confronted a Toledo blade, not a woman's
brittle will. Concha regarded him calmly.
"If you refuse your consent you will lose me in
another way. I may not be able to marry as I wish,
 Rezanov |