| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: make a melancholy pilgrimage to my various houses. Four were
at that time tenantless and closed, like pillars of salt,
commemorating the corruption of the age and the decline of
private virtue. Three were occupied by persons who had
wearied me by every conceivable unjust demand and legal
subterfuge - persons whom, at that very hour, I was moving
heaven and earth to turn into the street. This was perhaps
the sadder spectacle of the two; and my heart grew hot within
me to behold them occupying, in my very teeth, and with an
insolent ostentation, these handsome structures which were as
much mine as the flesh upon my body.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: our brother is Antiphon. But why do you ask?' 'Let me introduce to you
some countrymen of mine, who are lovers of philosophy; they have heard that
Antiphon remembers a conversation of Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of
which the report came to him from Pythodorus, Zeno's friend.' 'That is
quite true.' 'And can they hear the dialogue?' 'Nothing easier; in the
days of his youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present, his
thoughts have another direction: he takes after his grandfather, and has
given up philosophy for horses.'
'We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a worker in
brass about a bridle. When he had done with him, and had learned from his
brothers the purpose of our visit, he saluted me as an old acquaintance,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted
with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine
girl she is. Call upon her, by all means."
"There is no necessity for my calling this morning," said the
young man; "another day would do as well; but there was that degree
of acquaintance at Weymouth which--"
"Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done
cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank;
any want of attention to her here should be carefully avoided.
You saw her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body
she mixed with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother,
Emma |
