| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: nailed to the spot by the question of his own proper
interests.
"Do you desire me to go?" said he. "Explain yourself -- but
quickly."
"Monsieur, monsieur, you do not understand me. It is very
critical -- I know -- that which I am doing. I express
myself badly, or perhaps, as monsieur is a foreigner, which
I perceive by his accent ---- "
In fact, the unknown spoke with that impetuosity which is
the principal character of English accentuation, even among
men who speak the French language with the neatest purity.
Ten Years Later |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: and endless suffering must arise to individuals in the attempt to co-
ordinate the ideals, manners, and institutions of the society to the new
conditions! There might be immense gain in many directions; lives
otherwise sacrificed would be spared, a higher and more satisfactory stage
of existence might be entered on; but the disco-ordination and struggle
would be inevitable until the society had established an equilibrium
between its knowledge, its material conditions, and its social, sexual, and
religious ideals and institutions.
An analogous condition, but of a far more complex kind, exists at the
present day in our own societies. Our material environment differs in
every respect from that of our grandparents, and bears little or no
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: all events, you shall hear, if you will, the time and the manner of
his arrival.
It was the last night of December, some thirty-five years ago. All
the city sportsmen who had hunted the deer under Bill Moody's
direction had long since retreated to their homes, leaving the
little settlement on the border of the Adirondack wilderness wholly
under the social direction of the natives.
The annual ball was in full swing in the dining-room of the hotel.
At one side of the room the tables and chairs were piled up, with
their legs projecting in the air like a thicket of very dead trees.
The huge stove in the southeast corner was blushing a rosy red
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