| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: to the back door, which had been left unfastened for
Laban's entry, and passed in to the foot of the stair-
case.
"Mrs. Tall, I've come for the key of the granary,
to get at the rick-cloths." said Oak, in a stentorian
voice.
"Is that you?" said Mrs. Susan Tall, half awake.
"Yes." said Gabriel.
"Come along to bed, do, you drawlatching rogue --
keeping a body awake like this ."
"It isn't Laban -- 'tis Gabriel Oak. I want the key
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: may search through all the women in the world, like that king in holy
Scripture, and you won't find the equal of Madame. You ought to kiss
the ground she steps on. Goodness! if you make her unhappy, you'll
only spoil your own life. There she is, poor thing, with her eyes full
of tears."
Vedie left the poor man utterly cast down; he dropped into an armchair
and gazed into vacancy like the melancholy imbecile that he was, and
forgot to shave. These alternations of tenderness and severity worked
upon this feeble creature whose only life was through his amorous
fibre, the same morbid effect which great changes from tropical heat
to arctic cold produce upon the human body. It was a moral pleurisy,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: season of the life of man." So Walt Whitman, passim.
Or again, if it be sweet to win from willing hearts the things we seek
for, I am persuaded that, by the eloquence of silence, I could win a
kiss from yonder girl or boy more speedily than ever you could, O
sage! by help of half a hundred subtle arguments.
Eh, bless my ears, what's that? (Socrates broke in upon this final
flourish of the speaker). So beautiful you claim to rival me, you
boaster?
Crit. Why, yes indeed, I hope so, or else I should be uglier than all
the Silenuses in the Satyric drama.[33]
[33] The MSS. add ["to whom, be it noted, Socrates indeed bore a
The Symposium |
