| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: were of a kind to do away, she found herself occasionally
called on to endure something worse. She was introduced
here and there by her uncle, and forced to be spoken to,
and to curtsey, and speak again. This was a hard duty,
and she was never summoned to it without looking at William,
as he walked about at his ease in the background of the scene,
and longing to be with him.
The entrance of the Grants and Crawfords was a favourable epoch.
The stiffness of the meeting soon gave way before their
popular manners and more diffused intimacies: little groups
were formed, and everybody grew comfortable. Fanny felt
Mansfield Park |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in the superiority of the
beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a contemptuous glance
can never wound her? is she wealthy enough to surround herself
with state which falls nothing short of royalty, of kings, of
finance during their short reign of splendour? is she so
ready-witted that a keen-edged jest never brings her into
confusion? beautiful enough to rival any woman?--Is it such a
small thing to know that your self-love will never suffer through
her? A man makes these reflections in the twinkling of an eye.
And how if, in the future opened out by early ripened passion, he
catches glimpses of the changeful delight of her charm, the frank
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions
he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his
hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words,
which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: "My
little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric
upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance,
idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a
legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and
applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting,
confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of
an institution, which, in its original, might have been
Gulliver's Travels |
