| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: do to stop the ruin which had begun before your marriage?--
Beyond THAT, had you endeavoured, however reasonably,
to abridge HIS enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that instead
of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it,
you would have lessened your own influence on his heart,
and made him regret the connection which had involved him
in such difficulties?"
Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word
"Selfish?" in a tone that implied--"do you really think
him selfish?"
"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor,
Sense and Sensibility |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: learning. I found in Cairo a mixture of all nations: some brought
thither by the love of knowledge, some by the hope of gain; many by
the desire of living after their own manner without observation,
and of lying hid in the obscurity of multitudes; for in a city
populous as Cairo it is possible to obtain at the same time the
gratifications of society and the secrecy of solitude.
"From Cairo I travelled to Suez, and embarked on the Red Sea,
passing along the coast till I arrived at the port from which I had
departed twenty years before. Here I joined myself to a caravan,
and re-entered my native country.
"I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen and the congratulations
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: less rich. The prospect of a post in the Palais and professional
conscientiousness are enough to make a judge's clerk a successful
rival of the tomb--for the tomb has betrayed many secrets since
chemistry has made such progress.
This official is, in fact, the magistrate's pen. It will be understood
by many readers that a man may gladly be the shaft of a machine, while
they wonder why he is content to remain a bolt; still a bolt is
content--perhaps the machinery terrifies him.
Camusot's clerk, a young man of two-and-twenty, named Coquart, had
come in the morning to fetch all the documents and the judge's notes,
and laid everything ready in his chambers, while the lawyer himself
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