| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: jealous little toss. 'He must be an interesting man to take up so
much of your attention.'
'Interesting!' said Stephen, his face glowing with his fervour;
'noble, you ought to say.'
'Oh yes, yes; I forgot,' she said half satirically. 'The noblest
man in England, as you told us last night.'
'He is a fine fellow, laugh as you will, Miss Elfie.'
'I know he is your hero. But what does he do? anything?'
'He writes.'
'What does he write? I have never heard of his name.'
'Because his personality, and that of several others like him, is
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: probably be unfrocked, if not excommunicated. And yet no honest and
intellectually capable doctor or parson can say more. Clearly it
would not be wise of the doctor to say it, because optimistic lies
have such immense therapeutic value that a doctor who cannot tell them
convincingly has mistaken his profession. And a clergyman who is not
prepared to lay down the law dogmatically will not be of much use in a
village school, though it behoves him all the more to be very careful
what law he lays down. But unless both the clergyman and the doctor
are in the attitude expressed by these speeches they are not fit for
their work. The man who believes that he has more than a provisional
hypothesis to go upon is a born fool. He may have to act vigorously
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: I'll put a bead upon the--'
'You will not lay a finger on the man,' said Herrick. 'The fault
is yours and you know it. If you turn a savage loose in your
store-room, you know what to expect. I will not allow the man
to be molested.'
It is hard to say how Davis might have taken this defiance;
but he was diverted to a fresh assailant.
'Well!' drawled Huish, 'you're a plummy captain, ain't you?
You're a blooming captain! Don't you, set up any of your chat
to me, John Dyvis: I know you now, you ain't any more use
than a bloomin' dawl! Oh, you "don't know", don't you? Oh,
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