| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: not imagine that I often read novels--It is really
very well for a novel." Such is the common cant.
"And what are you reading, Miss--?" "Oh! It is only
a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her
book with affected indifference, or momentary shame.
"It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short,
only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind
are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of
human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties,
the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed
to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the
West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant
raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity.
During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been
kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the
past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her
desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at
this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting
sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final
closing of the barricades for the night.
And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Greve and
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: He broke both hinges, and the stone fell inside by reason of its
great weight. The portals re-echoed with the sound, the bars held
no longer, and the doors flew open, one one way, and the other
the other, through the force of the blow. Then brave Hector
leaped inside with a face as dark as that of flying night. The
gleaming bronze flashed fiercely about his body and he had two
spears in his hand. None but a god could have withstood him as he
flung himself into the gateway, and his eyes glared like fire.
Then he turned round towards the Trojans and called on them to
scale the wall, and they did as he bade them--some of them at
once climbing over the wall, while others passed through the
The Iliad |
