| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: to give Lady Caversham a narcotic. Otherwise she would never consent
to have a feather touched.
LORD GORING. [With increased emphasis.] Good morning, Miss Mabel!
MABEL CHILTERN. [Turning round with feigned surprise.] Oh, are you
here? Of course you understand that after your breaking your
appointment I am never going to speak to you again.
LORD GORING. Oh, please don't say such a thing. You are the one
person in London I really like to have to listen to me.
MABEL CHILTERN. Lord Goring, I never believe a single word that
either you or I say to each other.
LORD CAVERSHAM. You are quite right, my dear, quite right . . . as
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: a great respect for the Almighty and a great fear of His wrath. Then,
when she had listened to the Passion, she wept. Why had they crucified
Him who loved little children, nourished the people, made the blind
see, and who, out of humility, had wished to be born among the poor,
in a stable? The sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those
familiar things which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her
life; the word of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with
increased tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because
of the Holy Ghost.
She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person, for
was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath? Perhaps it is
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: then the high-road between Sweden and Brandenburg the unfortunate.
The Lion of the North was no doubt an estimable <4> person and acted wholly
up to his convictions, but he must have sadly upset the peaceful nuns,
who were not without convictions of their own, sending them out on to
the wide, empty plain to piteously seek some life to replace the life
of silence here.
From nearly all the windows of the house I can look out
across the plain, with no obstacle in the shape of a hill,
right away to a blue line of distant forest, and on the west
side uninterruptedly to the setting sun--nothing but a green,
rolling plain, with a sharp edge against the sunset.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
