| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: for the grandeur of the moment, by doubling what he
chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland's preferment,
trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt,
and sinking half the children, he was able to represent
the whole family to the general in a most respectable light.
For Catherine, however, the peculiar object of the general's
curiosity, and his own speculations, he had yet something
more in reserve, and the ten or fifteen thousand pounds
which her father could give her would be a pretty addition
to Mr. Allen's estate. Her intimacy there had made him
seriously determine on her being handsomely legacied hereafter;
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Lighted by a lamp, a couch in the background
Egmont (alone). Old friend! Ever faithful sleep, dost thou too forsake me,
like my other friends? How wert thou wont of yore to descend unsought
upon my free brow, cooling my temples as with a myrtle wreath of love!
Amidst the din of battle, on the waves of life, I rested in thine arms,
breathing lightly as a growing boy. When tempests whistled through the
leaves and boughs, when the summits of the lofty trees swung creaking in
the blast, the inmost core of my heart remained unmoved. What agitates
thee now? What shakes thy firm and steadfast mind? I feel it, 'tis the sound
of the murderous axe, gnawing at thy root. Yet I stand erect, but an inward
shudder runs through my frame. Yes, it prevails, this treacherous power; it
Egmont |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day, we have
the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass the
morning dressing ship.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 1ST.
I sit to write to you now, 7.15, all the world in bed except
myself, accounted for, and Belle and Graham, down at
Haggard's at dinner. Not a leaf is stirring here; but the
moon overhead (now of a good bigness) is obscured and partly
revealed in a whirling covey of thin storm-clouds. By Jove,
it blows above.
From 8 till 11.15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in
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