| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Observing a married couple, whose domestic troubles were matter
of notoriety, he condoled with both on having mutually taken a
house adder to their bosoms. To an envious author, who
depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that his
snake was the slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe,
but was fortunately without a sting. A man of impure life, and a
brazen face, asking Roderick if there were any serpent in his
breast, he told him that there was, and of the same species that
once tortured Don Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl by
the hand, and gazing sadly into her eyes, warned her that she
cherished a serpent of the deadliest kind within her gentle
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: eminently fit themselves to be useful to the fatherland, that is as
much as to say they will not squander their private means; since with
the state itself the domestic fortunes of each are saved or lost. The
real fact is, these men are saviours, not of their own fortunes only,
but of the private fortunes of the rest, of yours and mine. Yet there
are not a few irrational people amongst these cavillers who, out of
jealousy, would rather perish, thanks to their own baseness, than owe
their lives to the virtue of their neighbours. So true is it that the
mass of pleasures are but evil,[16] to which men succumb, and thereby
are incited to adopt the worse cause in speech and course in
action.[17] And with what result?--from vain and empty arguments they
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: river, nestled a village. It was now sleeping. . . . Its huts,
its church with the belfry, its trees, stood out against the
gray twilight and were reflected darkly in the smooth surface of
the river.
I waked Pashka for fear he should fall out and began cautiously
going down.
"Have we got to Lukovo?" asked Pashka, lifting his head lazily.
"Yes. Hold the reins! . . ."
I led the horse down the hill and looked at the village. At the
first glance one strange circumstance caught my attention: at the
very top of the belfry, in the tiny window between the cupola and
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
