| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking.
You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species,
your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death
for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the
first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and
terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to
be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold
and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to
their warm - firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation;
ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the
shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men,
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: "I surely had to tell you this all out, didn't I?" said the
cow-puncher, faintly, in his chair."Oh!" said Molly again
"I have put it clear how it is," he pursued. "I ought to have
seen from the start I was not the sort to keep you happy."
"But," said Molly--"but I--you ought--please try to keep me
happy!" And sinking by his chair, she hid her face on his knees.
Speechless, lie bent down and folded her round, putting his hands
on the hair that had been always his delight. Presently he
whispered:- "You have beat me; how can I fight this?"
She answered nothing. The Navajo's scarlet and black folds fell
over both. Not with words, not even with meeting eyes, did the
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: and he is always eloquent, his crater is always spouting--is of the
pattern common to his day, but he departs from the custom of the time
in one respect: his brethren allowed sense to intrude when it did
not mar the sound, but he does not allow it to intrude at all.
For example, consider this figure, which he used in the village
"Address" referred to with such candid complacency in the title-page
above quoted--"like the topmost topaz of an ancient tower."
Please read it again; contemplate it; measure it; walk around it;
climb up it; try to get at an approximate realization of the size of it.
Is the fellow to that to be found in literature, ancient or modern,
foreign or domestic, living or dead, drunk or sober? One notices
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