| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: individual is to make what is beautiful. And as I have mentioned
the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense
is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual
labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour
at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and
morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find
pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless
activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy
crossing for eight hours, on a day when the east wind is blowing is
a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or
physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: touch me again."
The strange man picked up his hat. "No thanks," he said grimly. "But I'll
not forget this--I'll go to your landlady."
"Pooh!" She shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "I'll tell her you forced
your way in here and tried to assault me. Who will she believe?--with your
bitten hand. You go and find your Schafers."
A sensation of glorious, intoxicating happiness flooded Viola. She rolled
her eyes at him. "If you don't go away this moment I'll bite you again,"
she said, and the absurd words started her laughing. Even when the door
was closed, hearing him descending the stairs, she laughed, and danced
about the room.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: state-astrologer was banter'd out of his life by an ignorant
impostor, or bawl'd out of the world by a pack of villanous,
deep-mouth'd hawkers? Though I print almanacks, and publish
advertisements; though I produce certificates under the ministers
and church-wardens hands I am alive, and attest the same on oath
at quarter-sessions, out comes a full and true relation of the
death and interment of John Partridge; Truth is bore down,
attestations neglected, the testimony of sober persons despised,
and a man is looked upon by his neighbours as if he had been
seven years dead, and is buried alive in the midst of his friends
and acquaintance.
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