| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: have been nothing to alter in their proportions.
"Do you know," said the little friar, as they wound along the banks
of the stream, "the reason why lake-trout is better than river-trout,
and shyer withal?"
"I was not aware of the fact," said Sir Ralph.
"A most heterodox remark," said brother Michael: "know you not,
that in all nice matters you should take the implication for absolute,
and, without looking into the FACT WHETHER, seek only the reason why?
But the fact is so, on the word of a friar; which what layman will venture
to gainsay who prefers a down bed to a gridiron?"
"The fact being so," said the knight, "I am still at a loss for the reason;
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Fairy stories hear and tell.
XXXVII
From a Railway Carriage
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
 A Child's Garden of Verses |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: sort of thing of which we read so much in the Gazette."
"And I trust, Sir Philip," said Lady Bothwell, "that you will
remember that you are a husband and a father; and that, though
you think fit to indulge this military fancy, you will not let it
hurry you into dangers which it is certainly unnecessary for any
save professional persons to encounter."
"Lady Bothwell does me too much honour," replied the adventurous
knight, "in regarding such a circumstance with the slightest
interest. But to soothe your flattering anxiety, I trust your
ladyship will recollect that I cannot expose to hazard the
venerable and paternal character which you so obligingly
|