| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: However, I was curious to see what an author of that country
could say upon such a subject. This writer went through all the
usual topics of European moralists, showing "how diminutive,
contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own nature;
how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the air, or the
fury of wild beasts: how much he was excelled by one creature in
strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight, by a
fourth in industry." He added, "that nature was degenerated in
these latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce
only small abortive births, in comparison of those in ancient
times." He said "it was very reasonable to think, not only that
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: though moderating it by an almost affectionate smile,
he added--
"And by then you will probably consent to die from
sheer disgust."
Captain Whalley, smiling too, shook his head. "God
forbid!"
He thought that perhaps on the whole he deserved
something better than to die in such sentiments. The
time of course would have to come, and he trusted to
his Maker to provide a manner of going out of which
he need not be ashamed. For the rest he hoped he
End of the Tether |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: While lord Woodville was cramming these words into his guest's
ear, "against the stomach of his sense," they gained the middle
of the gallery, when he beheld General Browne suddenly start, and
assume an attitude of the utmost surprise, not unmixed with fear,
as his eyes were suddenly caught and riveted by a portrait of an
old lady in a sacque, the fashionable dress of the end of the
seventeenth century.
"There she is!" he exclaimed--"there she is, in form and
features, though Inferior in demoniac expression to the accursed
hag who visited me last night!"
"If that be the case," said the young nobleman, "there can remain
|
