| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest,
and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents'
house--my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all
my occupations and my pleasures.
Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential
attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it,
my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being
brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, "I have a pretty
present for my Victor--tomorrow he shall have it." And when,
on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift,
I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: my lodgings. It was dark when I opened the front door and walked
into the house. I wondered how my fire would be; the night was
cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a grate full of
sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, I found, on entering
my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth. I had hardly
noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another subject
for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was
already filled; a person sat there with his. arms folded on his
chest, and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I
am, doubtful as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment's
examination enabled me to recognize in this person my
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: all the other "brave words" of our bourgeoisie about freedom in
general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted
selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages,
but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of
buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production,
and of the bourgeoisie itself.
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private
property. But in your existing society, private property is
already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its
existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the
hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with
The Communist Manifesto |
