| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: Her rooms, with their cramped outlook down a sallow vista of
brick walls and fire-escapes, her lonely meals in the dark
restaurant with its surcharged ceiling and haunting smell of
coffee--all these material discomforts, which were yet to be
accounted as so many privileges soon to be withdrawn, kept
constantly before her the disadvantages of her state; and
her mind reverted the more insistently to Mrs. Fisher's counsels.
Beat about the question as she would, she knew the outcome of it
was that she must try to marry Rosedale; and in this conviction
she was fortified by an unexpected visit from George Dorset.
She found him, on the first Sunday after her return to town,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: Up and away!---for lovely paths are these
To tread, when the glad Sun is on his throne
Less pleasant, and less safe, when Cynthia's lamp
With doubtful glimmer lights the dreary forest.
_Ettrick Forest._
When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down
senseless in the lists at Ashby, his first impulse
was to order him into the custody and care of his
own attendants, but the words choked in his throat.
He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in presence
of such an assembly, the son whom he had
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: delicacies[37] of the market at great cost, mine are the dainties of
the soul more sweet than theirs,[38] procured without expense? If in
all I have said about myself no one can convict me of lying, is it not
obvious that the praise I get from gods and men is justly earned? And
yet in spite of all, Meletus, you will have it that by such habits I
corrupt the young. We know, I fancy, what such corrupting influences
are; and perhaps you will tell us if you know of any one who, under my
influence, has been changed from a religous into an irreligious man;
who, from being sober-minded, has become prodigal; from being a
moderate drinker has become a wine-bibber and a drunkard; from being a
lover of healthy honest toil has become effeminate, or under the
The Apology |
