| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth
upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . .
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: One evening in August (she was then eighteen years old), they
persuaded her to accompany them to the fair at Colleville. She was
immediately dazzled by the noise, the lights in the trees, the
brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the crowd
of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a
distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had
been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached
her, and asked her for a dance. He treated her to cider and cake,
bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his
purpose, offered to see her home. When they came to the end of a field
he threw her down brutally. But she grew frightened and screamed, and
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: "To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have
the charge of her three little girls--delightful children.
Impossible that any situation could be more replete with comfort;
if we except, perhaps, Mrs. Suckling's own family, and Mrs. Bragge's;
but Mrs. Smallridge is intimate with both, and in the very
same neighbourhood:--lives only four miles from Maple Grove.
Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove."
"Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--"
"Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend.
She would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, `No;' for
when Jane first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday,
Emma |
