| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: said inquiringly, "Something amuses you?"
"Yes," said Will, quick in finding resources. "I am thinking
of the sort of figure I cut the first time I saw you, when you
annihilated my poor sketch with your criticism."
"My criticism?" said Dorothea, wondering still more. "Surely not.
I always feel particularly ignorant about painting."
"I suspected you of knowing so much, that you knew how to say just what
was most cutting. You said--I dare say you don't remember it as I do--
that the relation of my sketch to nature was quite hidden from you.
At least, you implied that." Will could laugh now as well as smile.
"That was really my ignorance," said Dorothea, admiring
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: slap in the face at once. The life would be shown to be a vile
one, not without a side shot at your better fortune. Now, what I
like so much in France is the clear unflinching recognition by
everybody of his own luck. They all know on which side their bread
is buttered, and take a pleasure in showing it to others, which is
surely the better part of religion. And they scorn to make a poor
mouth over their poverty, which I take to be the better part of
manliness. I have heard a woman in quite a better position at
home, with a good bit of money in hand, refer to her own child with
a horrid whine as 'a poor man's child.' I would not say such a
thing to the Duke of Westminster. And the French are full of this
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: Empresses and the child, they were at once arrested, the leader
beheaded, and the others condemned to exile or to suicide. The
child had been placed upon the throne as "good-luck," but now a
new regency was formed, consisting of the two dowagers, with
Prince Kung as joint regent, and the title of the reign was
changed to Tung Chih or "joint government." Thus ended the
Empress Dowager's years of training.
III
The Empress Dowager--As a Ruler
That a Manchu woman who had had such narrow opportunities of
obtaining a knowledge of things as they really are, in
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