| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: would have been to betray fear.
"I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Garth," he said, in his usual
tone of politeness. "My servant will be back in a few minutes,
and I shall then go myself to see what can be done for this
unfortunate man. Perhaps you had some other business with me?
If so, pray be seated."
"Thank you," said Caleb, making a slight gesture with his right
hand to waive the invitation. "I wish to say, Mr. Bulstrode,
that I must request you to put your business into some other hands
than mine. I am obliged to you for your handsome way of meeting me--
about the letting of Stone Court, and all other business.
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: alive? It is a hard thing for the living to see these places,
for between us and them there are great and terrible waters, and
there is Oceanus, which no man can cross on foot, but he must
have a good ship to take him. Are you all this time trying to
find your way home from Troy, and have you never yet got back to
Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?'
"'Mother,' said I, 'I was forced to come here to consult the
ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been
near the Achaean land nor set foot on my native country, and I
have had nothing but one long series of misfortunes from the
very first day that I set out with Agamemnon for Ilius, the land
The Odyssey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: candles."
"And amidst such shadowy and doubtful light," continued I,
"imagination frames her enchanted and enchanting visions, and
sometimes passes them upon the senses for reality."
"Yes," said Aunt Margaret, who is a well-read woman, "to those
who resemble the translator of Tasso,--
'Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung.
It is not required for this purpose that you should be sensible
of the painful horrors which an actual belief in such prodigies
inflicts. Such a belief nowadays belongs only to fools and
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