| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: wagon box under his bed, and a farm, and five thousand sheep, and God
Almighty knows how many goats and horses. They milk ten cows in mid-
winter, and the young men are after her like flies about a bowl of milk.
She says she means to get married in four months, but she doesn't yet know
to whom. It was so with me when I was young," said Tant Sannie. "I've sat
up with the young men four and five nights a week. And they will come
riding again, as soon as ever they know that the time's up that the
Englishman made me agree not to marry in."
The Boer-woman smirked complacently.
"Where are you going to?" asked Tant Sannie presently, seeing that
Bonaparte rose.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: sink in it, yes, for these waters were unfathomably deep. Into them
had spilled so many lives. The Ramsays'; the children's; and all sorts
of waifs and strays of things besides. A washer-woman with her basket;
a rook, a red-hot poker; the purples and grey-greens of flowers: some
common feeling which held the whole together.
It was some such feeling of completeness perhaps which, ten years ago,
standing almost where she stood now, had made her say that she must be
in love with the place. Love had a thousand shapes. There might be
lovers whose gift it was to choose out the elements of things and place
them together and so, giving them a wholeness not theirs in life, make
of some scene, or meeting of people (all now gone and separate), one of
To the Lighthouse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by
individuals?' What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words?
Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on
behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will
argue that this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply, 'Yes; but
the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.' Suppose I say
that?
CRITO: Very good, Socrates.
SOCRATES: 'And was that our agreement with you?' the law would answer; 'or
were you to abide by the sentence of the state?' And if I were to express
my astonishment at their words, the law would probably add: 'Answer,
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