| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: responsibility of which would have fallen on his successor. The
widow and wife would have broken by the rekindled hearth the
silence that only a widow and wife might break, and Deane would be
as aflame with the knowledge as Corvick in his own hour, as
Gwendolen in hers, had been. Well, he was aflame doubtless, but
the fire was apparently not to become a public blaze. I scanned
the periodicals in vain: Drayton Deane filled them with exuberant
pages, but he withheld the page I most feverishly sought. He wrote
on a thousand subjects, but never on the subject of Vereker. His
special line was to tell truths that other people either "funked,"
as he said, or overlooked, but he never told the only truth that
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: them, nor any impulse or inclination, which may prompt any desire or
endeavor of doing the like. But virtue, by the bare statement of its
actions, can so affect men's minds as to create at once both admiration
of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods
of fortune we would possess and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to
practice and exercise; we are content to receive the former from others,
the latter we wish others to experience from us. Moral good is a
practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it inspires an impulse to
practice; and influences the mind and character not by a mere imitation
which we look at, but, by the statement of the fact, creates a moral
purpose which we form.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: elements of existence. I am disposed to be lenient with the arts and
sciences; and I find time to instigate a cordiality for the more human
works of nature, such as romance and the atmosphere and grass and
poetry and the Seasons. I never skin a sucker without admiring the
prismatic beauty of his scales. I never sell a little auriferous
beauty to the man with the hoe without noticing the beautiful harmony
there is between gold and green. And that's why I liked this scheme;
it was so full of outdoor air and landscapes and easy money.
We had to have a young lady assistant to help us work this graft; and
I asked Buck if he knew of one to fill the bill.
"One," says I, "that is cool and wise and strictly business from her
|
