| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman's existence
for her, will make it up to her with expensive bon-bons, packed up
and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be prying
and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the
character of a confidential clerk. We use round, general,
gentlemanly epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and
ladies, with that fine intuition which is the distinguishing
attribute of their sex, see at once that he is "nice." The
chances are that he will go through life without scandalizing any
one; a seaworthy vessel that no one would refuse to insure.
Ships, certainly, are liable to casualties, which sometimes make
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: bending over the corn, or the grape gatherers threading through the
vines, of the grass in the orchard made white with broken blossoms
or strewn with fallen fruit: of these we know nothing and can know
nothing.
For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very
sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and
gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled
glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is
grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is
always twilight in one's heart. And in the sphere of thought, no
less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due
to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a
living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope--fervently
do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Second Inaugural Address |
