| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: eager to be heard at once, what fitter time than now to sing a song,
in chorus.
And suiting the action to the words, he commenced a stave.
The song was barely finished, when a potter's wheel was brought in, on
which the dancing-girl was to perform more wonders.
At this point Socrates addressed the man of Syracuse: It seems I am
likely to deserve the title which you gave me of a thinker in good
earnest. Just now I am speculating by what means your boy and girl may
pass a happy time, and we spectators still derive the greatest
pleasure from beholding them; and this, I take it, is precisely what
you would yourself most wish. Now I maintain, that throwing
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: outfit.
Oscar's mother endeavored to impress the old gentleman with the idea
that his nephew cherished him, and she constantly referred to the cup
and the fork and spoon and to the beautiful suit of clothes, though
nothing was then left of the latter but the waistcoat. But such little
arts did Oscar more harm than good when practised on so sly an old fox
as uncle Cardot. The latter had never much liked his departed wife, a
tall, spare, red-haired woman; he was also aware of the circumstances
of the late Husson's marriage with Oscar's mother, and without in the
least condemning her, he knew very well that Oscar was a posthumous
child. His nephew, therefore, seemed to him to have no claims on the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: But sometimes she is a good woman and gives to those who merit,
which has been the case with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who have given a
living to my son."
Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a dignified satisfaction
in her neat little effort at oratory, but this was not what Dorothea
wanted to hear. Poor thing! she did not even know whether Will Ladislaw
was still at Middlemarch, and there was no one whom she dared to ask,
unless it were Lydgate. But just now she could not see Lydgate
without sending for him or going to seek him. Perhaps Will Ladislaw,
having heard of that strange ban against him left by Mr. Casaubon,
had felt it better that he and she should not meet again, and perhaps
Middlemarch |
