| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: sensibly impaired; I was no longer able to accommodate
myself with readiness to the accidental current
of conversation; my notions grew particular
and paradoxical, and my phraseology formal and
unfashionable; I spoke, on common occasions, the
language of books. My quickness of apprehension,
and celerity of reply, had entirely deserted me;
when I delivered my opinion, or detailed my knowledge,
I was bewildered by an unseasonable interrogatory,
disconcerted by any slight opposition, and
overwhelmed and lost in dejection, when the smallest
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege
the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of
Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after
supper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among
whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife
Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and
intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of
that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds
his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her
maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or
in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: truest and most loving friends, Benjamin Woodward. Nor was it here
in Ireland only that I received the help of Irish sympathy and
genius. When to another friend, Sir Thomas Deane, with Mr.
Woodward, was entrusted the building of the museum at Oxford, the
best details of the work were executed by sculptors who had been
born and trained here; and the first window of the facade of the
building, in which was inaugurated the study of natural science in
England, in true fellowship with literature, was carved from my
design by an Irish sculptor.
You may perhaps think that no man ought to speak of disappointment,
to whom, even in one branch of labour, so much success was granted.
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