| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: much of the finest company, can find little entertainment in an obscure
corner of the country.
MARLOW. (Gathering courage.) I have lived, indeed, in the world,
madam; but I have kept very little company. I have been but an
observer upon life, madam, while others were enjoying it.
MISS NEVILLE. But that, I am told, is the way to enjoy it at last.
HASTINGS. (To him.) Cicero never spoke better. Once more, and you
are confirmed in assurance for ever.
MARLOW. (To him.) Hem! Stand by me, then, and when I'm down, throw
in a word or two, to set me up again.
MISS HARDCASTLE. An observer, like you, upon life were, I fear,
She Stoops to Conquer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without
form; these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally
brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is
completed.
Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of
birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their
minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the
clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight;
these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers
instead of hair. The race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from
those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: This taciturnity in a man whose appearance was so imposing was
strangely significant. Sometimes when we met him, we exchanged glances
full of meaning on both sides, but they never led to any advances.
Insensibly this man became the object of our secret admiration, though
we knew no reason for it. Did it lie in his secretly simple habits,
his monastic regularity, his hermit-like frugality, his idiotically
mechanical labor, allowing his mind to remain neuter or to work on his
own lines, seeming to us to hint at an expectation of some stroke of
good luck, or at some foregone conclusion as to his life?
After wandering for a long time among the Ruins of Palmyra, we forgot
them--we were young! Then came the Carnival, the Paris Carnival,
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