| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: in the weaver's experience. It was only the want of adequate
knowledge that could have made it possible for Godfrey deliberately
to entertain an unfeeling project: his natural kindness had outlived
that blighting time of cruel wishes, and Nancy's praise of him as a
husband was not founded entirely on a wilful illusion.
"I was right," she said to herself, when she had recalled all
their scenes of discussion--"I feel I was right to say him nay,
though it hurt me more than anything; but how good Godfrey has been
about it! Many men would have been very angry with me for standing
out against their wishes; and they might have thrown out that they'd
had ill-luck in marrying me; but Godfrey has never been the man to
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: until man had assumed a completely upright position, for monkeys
do not frown when exposed to a glaring light. Our early progenitors,
when enraged, would probably have exposed their teeth more freely than
does man, even when giving full vent to his rage, as with the insane.
We may, also, feel almost certain that they would have protruded their lips,
when sulky or disappointed, in a greater degree than is the case with
our own children, or even with the children of existing savage races.
Our early progenitors, when indignant or moderately angry,
would not have held their heads erect, opened their chests,
squared their shoulders, and clenched their fists, until they
had acquired the ordinary carriage and upright attitude
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: official can seldom hope to attain to. They had a strong interest
in representing things to be worse than they were; for the more
intense the scarcity, the greater the merit in collecting the
land-tax. Every consultation is filled with their apprehensions
and highly-coloured accounts of the public distress; but it does
not appear that the conviction entered the minds of the Council
during the previous winter months, that the question was not so
much one of revenue as of depopulation." In fact, the local
officers had cried "Wolf!" too often. Government was slow to
believe them, and announced that nothing better could be expected
than the adoption of a generous policy toward those landholders
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
