| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: a semblance of life, and stands behind her counter, afflicting
the world with a greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your poor
cousin Clifford is another dead and long-buried person, on whom
the governor and council have wrought a necromantic miracle.
I should not wonder if he were to crumble away, some morning,
after you are gone, and nothing be seen of him more, except a
heap of dust. Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will lose what little
flexibility she has. They both exist by you."
"I should be very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe gravely.
"But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they
needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare,--an odd
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . .
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: because they have used up all the short ones, ever since they took
to making nine species out of one. But - what would all the
learned men say to him after his speech at the British Association?
And what would Ellie say, after what he had just told her?
There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur pueris
reverentia" - The greatest reverence is due to children; that is,
that grown people should never say or do anything wrong before
children, lest they should set them a bad example. - Cousin
Cramchild says it means, "The greatest respectfulness is expected
from little boys." But he was raised in a country where little
boys are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are as
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