| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: to make an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income
as well as any body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will
act rationally. He is as well acquainted with his own claims, as you
can be with Harriet's. He knows that he is a very handsome young man,
and a great favourite wherever he goes; and from his general way
of talking in unreserved moments, when there are only men present,
I am convinced that he does not mean to throw himself away.
I have heard him speak with great animation of a large family
of young ladies that his sisters are intimate with, who have all
twenty thousand pounds apiece."
"I am very much obliged to you," said Emma, laughing again.
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: Nothing else in that book was recommended with anything like
the same warmth, and being entirely ignorant of the quantity
of seed necessary, I bought ten pounds of it and had it sown
not only in the eleven beds but round nearly every tree, and then
waited in great agitation for the promised paradise to appear.
It did not, and I learned my first lesson.
Luckily I had sown two great patches of sweetpeas which made me
very happy all the summer, and then there were some sunflowers and a few
hollyhocks under the south windows, with Madonna lilies in between.
But the lilies, after being transplanted, disappeared to my great dismay,
for how was I to know it was the way of lilies? And the hollyhocks turned
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden
globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its
tassels of snow.
And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too. Tom was
wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at
night to fly in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all.
Without a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low
road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the
spring - and very dirty he made it.
Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The Irishwoman
helped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty
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