| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly
whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, SHALL I
TELL IT? To which the answer was, GO AHEAD! - Well, - he said, -
this was what I heard:-
"Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't
pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation
straightened out for a crowbar."
Sir, - said I, - I am gratified with your remark. It expresses
with pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes heard uttered
with malignant dulness. The satire of the remark is essentially
true of Boston, - and of all other considerable - and
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: partly perhaps because Strether's estimate of fun had required of
him from the first a good deal of elucidation. "It wouldn't do if
I left you--?"
"Left me?"--Strether remained blank.
"Only for a month or two--time to go and come. Madame de Vionnet,"
Chad smiled, "would look after you in the interval."
"To go back by yourself, I remaining here?" Again for an instant
their eyes had the question out; after which Strether said:
"Grotesque!"
"But I want to see Mother," Chad presently returned. "Remember how
long it is since I've seen Mother."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: branches, season after season for more than a hundred years, bright strips
of colored paper inscribed with poems of praise. He himself became very
old,-- outliving all his children; and there was nothing in the world left
for him to live except that tree. And lo! in the summer of a certain year,
the tree withered and died!
Exceedingly the old man sorrowed for his tree. Then kind neighbors found
for him a young and beautiful cherry-tree, and planted it in his garden,--
hoping thus to comfort him. And he thanked them, and pretended to be glad.
But really his heart was full of pain; for he had loved the old tree so
well that nothing could have consoled him for the loss of it.
At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which
Kwaidan |
