| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: terms with his family, and pressed them so cordially
to dine at Barton Park every day till they were better
settled at home, that, though his entreaties were carried
to a point of perseverance beyond civility, they could
not give offence. His kindness was not confined to words;
for within an hour after he left them, a large basket
full of garden stuff and fruit arrived from the park,
which was followed before the end of the day by a present
of game. He insisted, moreover, on conveying all their
letters to and from the post for them, and would not be
denied the satisfaction of sending them his newspaper
Sense and Sensibility |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: impure devils, makers of all sinful lusts, and to assign worship
to deaf and dumb images, that are not, and never shall be, were
not that the extreme of folly and madness? When was there ever
heard utterance or language from their lips? When have they
given even the smallest answer to their bedesmen? When have they
walked, or received any impression of sense? Those of them that
stand have never thought of sitting down; and those that sit have
never been seen to rise. From an holy man have I learned the
ugliness, ill savour and insensibility of these idols, and,
moreover, the rottenness and weakness of the devils that operate
in them and by them deceive you; and I loathe their wickednesses
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: art of tormenting me, and if I ever dared to resist, I received
blows, laid on with no compunctious hand, or was sent to bed
dinnerless, as well as supperless. I said that it was a part of
my daily labour to attend this child, with the servility of a slave;
still it was but a part. I was sent out in all seasons, and from
place to place, to carry burdens far above my strength, without
being allowed to draw near the fire, or ever being cheered by
encouragement or kindness. No wonder then, treated like a creature
of another species, that I began to envy, and at length to hate,
the darling of the house. Yet, I perfectly remember, that it was
the caresses, and kind expressions of my step-mother, which first
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