| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom
one could not, in his public capacity, honour enough.
I should like to be such a man."
Edmund laughed.
"I should indeed. I never listened to a distinguished
preacher in my life without a sort of envy. But then,
I must have a London audience. I could not preach but
to the educated; to those who were capable of estimating
my composition. And I do not know that I should be fond
of preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice
in the spring, after being anxiously expected for half
Mansfield Park |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: He came into Midhurst by the bridge at the watermill, and up the
North Street, and a little shop flourishing cheerfully, the
cheerful sign of a teapot, and exhibiting a brilliant array of
tobaccos, sweets, and children's toys in the window, struck his
fancy. A neat, bright-eyed little old lady made him welcome, and
he was presently supping sumptuously on sausages and tea, with a
visitors' book full of the most humorous and flattering remarks
about the little old lady, in verse and prose, propped up against
his teapot as he ate. Regular good some of the jokes were, and
rhymes that read well--even with your mouth full of sausage. Mr.
Hoopdriver formed a vague idea of drawing " something "--for his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: his fields to feed swine, -- thus doth he designate the most
coarse and loathsome sin. When, after much labour, he had come
to the utmost misery, and might not even fill his belly with the
husks that the swine did eat, at last he came to perceive his
shameful plight, and, bemoaning himself, said, `How many hired
servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I
perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will
say unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one
of thy hired servants."' And he arose, and came to his father.
But, when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
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