| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: this was adorable genuineness, and religious abstinence from that
artificiality which uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence.
For she looked as reverently at Mr. Casaubon's religious elevation
above herself as she did at his intellect and learning.
He assented to her expressions of devout feeling, and usually with
an appropriate quotation; he allowed himself to say that he had gone
through some spiritual conflicts in his youth; in short, Dorothea saw
that here she might reckon on understanding, sympathy, and guidance.
On one--only one--of her favorite themes she was disappointed.
Mr. Casaubon apparently did not care about building cottages,
and diverted the talk to the extremely narrow accommodation
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: l'Intelligence, Tom. II. p. 203. See the account of Slavonic
werewolves in Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp.
404-418.
[83] Mr. Cox, whose scepticism on obscure points in history
rather surpasses that of Sir G. C. Lewis, dismisses with a
sneer the subject of the Berserker madness, observing that
"the unanimous testimony of the Norse historians is worth as
much and as little as the convictions of Glanvil and Hale on
the reality of witchcraft." I have not the special knowledge
requisite for pronouncing an opinion on this point, but Mr.
Cox's ordinary methods of disposing of such questions are not
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: Has never seen a loved one die,
Has never wept or heaved a sigh,
Has never had a plan go wrong,
But allus laughed his way along;
Then I'll sit down an' start to whine
That all the hard luck here is mine.
Vacation Time
Vacation time! How glad it seemed
When as a boy I sat and dreamed
Above my school books, of the fun
That I should claim when toil was done;
Just Folks |
