| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: "it was an acquaintance worth having;" and when Anne ventured to speak
her opinion of them to Mr Elliot, he agreed to their being nothing
in themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion,
as good company, as those who would collect good company around them,
they had their value. Anne smiled and said,
"My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever,
well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation;
that is what I call good company."
"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company;
that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education,
and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice.
Persuasion |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: her motherhood by giving milk to her young ones (and she who has no
fountain of milk is not a mother), so did this our land prove that she was
the mother of men, for in those days she alone and first of all brought
forth wheat and barley for human food, which is the best and noblest
sustenance for man, whom she regarded as her true offspring. And these are
truer proofs of motherhood in a country than in a woman, for the woman in
her conception and generation is but the imitation of the earth, and not
the earth of the woman. And of the fruit of the earth she gave a plenteous
supply, not only to her own, but to others also; and afterwards she made
the olive to spring up to be a boon to her children, and to help them in
their toils. And when she had herself nursed them and brought them up to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: was now so near her she could hear it beating in her ears. Away
in London even now Capes was packing and preparing; Capes, the
magic man whose touch turned one to trembling fire. What was he
doing? What was he thinking? It was less than a day now, less
than twenty hours. Seventeen hours, sixteen hours. She glanced
at the soft-ticking clock with the exposed brass pendulum upon
the white marble mantel, and made a rapid calculation. To be
exact, it was just sixteen hours and twenty minutes. The slow
stars circled on to the moment of their meeting. The softly
glittering summer stars! She saw them shining over mountains of
snow, over valleys of haze and warm darkness. . . . There would
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