| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nigntly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built
 Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: tradition, or interpretation, that pointed to any human imperfection
in their hero. They thus leave themselves with so little material
that they are forced to begin by saying that we know very little about
Shakespear. As a matter of fact, with the plays and sonnets in our
hands, we know much more about Shakespear than we know about Dickens
or Thackeray: the only difficulty is that we deliberately suppress it
because it proves that Shakespear was not only very unlike the
conception of a god current in Clapham, but was not, according to the
same reckoning, even a respectable man. The academic view starts with
a Shakespear who was not scurrilous; therefore the verses about "lousy
Lucy" cannot have been written by him, and the cognate passages in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: "But what does this note contain?"
"Milady will tell you."
"Ah, you do not love me!" cried Kitty, "and I am very
wretched."
To this reproach there is always one response which deludes
women. D'Artagnan replied in such a manner that Kitty
remained in her great delusion. Although she cried freely
before deciding to transmit the letter to her mistress, she
did at last so decide, which was all D'Artagnan wished.
Finally he promised that he would leave her mistress's
presence at an early hour that evening, and that when he
 The Three Musketeers |