| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: favor with both parties, and have to hear all their cabinet
councils and mutual backbitings. As I am too civil not to agree
with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed myself most
horribly with both parties, by abusing their opponents. I might
manage to reconcile this to my conscience, which is a truly
accommodating one, but I cannot to my apprehension--if the
Lambs and Trotters ever come to a reconciliation, and compare
notes, I am ruined!
I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in time, and am
actually looking out for some other nest in this great city,
where old English manners are still kept up; where French is
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: jaundice, and every object he pass'd by was discoloured or
distorted. - He wrote an account of them, but 'twas nothing but the
account of his miserable feelings.
I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon: - he was
just coming out of it. - 'TIS NOTHING BUT A HUGE COCKPIT, said he:
- I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis,
replied I; - for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had
fallen foul upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common
strumpet, without the least provocation in nature.
I popp'd upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a
sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, "wherein he spoke
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: opportunity in the Doctor's absence, go over to him, put her arms
about his neck, lay her cheek to his, and communicate her sympathy
with his distress. 'Do not mind,' she would say; 'I, too, am not
at all clever, and I can assure you that it makes no difference in
life.'
The Doctor's view was naturally different. That gentleman never
wearied of the sound of his own voice, which was, to say the truth,
agreeable enough to hear. He now had a listener, who was not so
cynically indifferent as Anastasie, and who sometimes put him on
his mettle by the most relevant objections. Besides, was he not
educating the boy? And education, philosophers are agreed, is the
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