| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: as hard to get rid of as these rural visitors. They come in
glibly, use up all the serviceable rhymes, DAY, RAY, BEAUTY, DUTY,
SKIES, EYES, OTHER, BROTHER, MOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN, and the like; and
so they go on until you think it is time for the wind-up, and the
wind-up won't come on any terms. So they lie about until you get
sick of the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of
a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I
suspect a good many "impromptus" could tell just such a story as
the above. - Here turning to our landlady, I used an illustration
which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been
highly commanded. "Madam," I said, "you can pour three gills and
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Par. I do defie thy commisseration,
And apprehend thee for a Fellon here
Ro. Wilt thou prouoke me? Then haue at thee Boy
Pet. O Lord they fight, I will go call the Watch
Pa. O I am slaine, if thou be mercifull,
Open the Tombe, lay me with Iuliet
Rom. In faith I will, let me peruse this face:
Mercutius kinsman, Noble Countie Paris,
What said my man, when my betossed soule
Did not attend him as we rode? I thinke
He told me Paris should haue married Iuliet.
Romeo and Juliet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: man's manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money fell
between us.
"I was thinking it would be more fit - if you will excuse the plainness
of my dressing in your presence - that I should go forth and leave you
to encounter her alone?" said I.
"What I would have looked for at your hands!" says he; and there was no
mistake but what he said it civilly.
I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my
hose, recalling the man's impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange's, I
determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.
"If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden," said I, "this room
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