| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: And shows her fading scroll.
One name appears in every line
The gentle rays shine o'er,
And still he smiles and still repeats
That one name--Elinor.
There is no sorrow in his smile,
No kindness in his tone;
The triumph of a selfish heart
Speaks coldly there alone;
He says: "She loved me more than life;
And truly it was sweet
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: "Oh, necessarily; Beaufort is a vulgar man," said
Mrs. Archer. "My grandfather Newland always used
to say to my mother: `Whatever you do, don't let that
fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls.' But at least
he's had the advantage of associating with gentlemen;
in England too, they say. It's all very mysterious--"
She glanced at Janey and paused. She and Janey knew
every fold of the Beaufort mystery, but in public Mrs.
Archer continued to assume that the subject was not
one for the unmarried.
"But this Mrs. Struthers," Mrs. Archer continued;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: subtracted. There is nothing left but a heap of 'ologies' and other
technical terms invented by Polus, Theodorus, Evenus, Tisias, Gorgias, and
others, who have rules for everything, and who teach how to be short or
long at pleasure. Prodicus showed his good sense when he said that there
was a better thing than either to be short or long, which was to be of
convenient length.
Still, notwithstanding the absurdities of Polus and others, rhetoric has
great power in public assemblies. This power, however, is not given by any
technical rules, but is the gift of genius. The real art is always being
confused by rhetoricians with the preliminaries of the art. The perfection
of oratory is like the perfection of anything else; natural power must be
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