| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: in the play, that while the young gentlefolk are courting on
the terrace, a rough flirtation is being carried on, and a
light, trivial sort of love is growing up, between the footman
and the singing chambermaid. As people are generally cast for
the leading parts in their own imaginations, the reader can
apply the parallel to real life without much chance of going
wrong. In short, they are quite sure this other love-affair
is not so deep seated as their own, but they like dearly to
see it going forward. And love, considered as a spectacle,
must have attractions for many who are not of the
confraternity. The sentimental old maid is a commonplace of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "For the love of sassafras!" exclaimed a
Peculiar Person who was hoeing pink violets in a
garden. "What can all this mean?"
For answer, Queen Ann sailed up from the
Tube, took a ride through the air as high as the
treetops, and alighted squarely on top of the
Peculiar Person's head, smashing a jeweled
crown over his eyes and tumbling him to the
ground.
The mule was heavier and had Betsy clinging to
his back, so he did not go so high up. Fortunately
Tik-Tok of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: A great need of something to lean on, and <60> a great weariness
of independence and responsibility took possession of my soul;
and looking round for support and comfort in that transitory mood,
the emptiness of the present and the blankness of the future sent
me back to the past with all its ghosts. Why should I not go
and see the place where I was born, and where I lived so long;
the place where I was so magnificently happy, so exquisitely wretched,
so close to heaven, so near to hell, always either up on a cloud of glory,
or down in the depths with the waters of despair closing over my head?
Cousins live in it now, distant cousins, loved with the exact measure
of love usually bestowed on cousins who reign in one's stead;
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
