| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: of the woman and the girl.
To the guest,--to Hepzibah's brother,--or Cousin Clifford, as
Phoebe now began to call him,--she was especially necessary.
Not that he could ever be said to converse with her, or often
manifest, in any other very definite mode, his sense of a charm
in her society. But if she were a long while absent he became
pettish and nervously restless, pacing the room to and fro with
the uncertainty that characterized all his movements; or else
would sit broodingly in his great chair, resting his head on his
hands, and evincing life only by an electric sparkle of ill-humor,
whenever Hepzibah endeavored to arouse him. Phoebe's presence,
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: there are more philosophers in those countries than anywhere else in the
world. This, however, is a secret which the Lacedaemonians deny; and they
pretend to be ignorant, just because they do not wish to have it thought
that they rule the world by wisdom, like the Sophists of whom Protagoras
was speaking, and not by valour of arms; considering that if the reason of
their superiority were disclosed, all men would be practising their wisdom.
And this secret of theirs has never been discovered by the imitators of
Lacedaemonian fashions in other cities, who go about with their ears
bruised in imitation of them, and have the caestus bound on their arms, and
are always in training, and wear short cloaks; for they imagine that these
are the practices which have enabled the Lacedaemonians to conquer the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: when she and her mother went west, I was the happiest fellow on
earth. Then something made a difference: she wrote me that her
people were opposed to the marriage; that her feeling for me was
what it had always been, but that something had happened which
had changed her ideas as to the future. I was not to write until
she wrote me, and whatever occurred, I was to think the best I
could of her. It sounded like a puzzle. When I saw her
yesterday, it was the same thing, only, perhaps, worse."
"Halsey," I asked, "have you any idea of the nature of the
interview between Louise Armstrong and Arnold the night he was
murdered?"
The Circular Staircase |
