| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: them improved on the form of the conquering biga, till it was given
up by a race who preferred a pair of shafts to their carts, and who
had learnt to ride instead of drive. A great aristocrat, again,
must he have been among those latter races who first conceived the
notion of getting on his horse's back, accommodating his motions to
the beast's, and becoming a centaur, half-man, half-horse. That
invention must have tended, in the first instance, as surely toward
democracy as did the invention of firearms. A tribe of riders must
have been always, more or less, equal and free. Equal because a man
on a horse would feel himself a man indeed; because the art of
riding called out an independence, a self-help, a skill, a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: and tissue to the tortured arteries and quenched the fire within.
Panting, but free from pain, I lay--exhausted.
Strength gradually returning to me, I tried to rise; but the carpet
felt so singularly soft that it offered me no foothold.
I waded and plunged like a swimmer treading water; and all about me
rose impenetrable walls of darkness, darkness all but palpable.
I wondered why I could not see the windows. The horrible idea
flashed to my mind that I was become blind!
Somehow I got upon my feet, and stood swaying dizzily.
I became aware of a heavy perfume, and knew it for some
kind of incense.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: the _frequency_, at least, of that knowledge which it
is impossible he should escape as he is now. A man--
a sensible man like Dr. Grant, cannot be in the habit
of teaching others their duty every week, cannot go
to church twice every Sunday, and preach such very good
sermons in so good a manner as he does, without being
the better for it himself. It must make him think;
and I have no doubt that he oftener endeavours to restrain
himself than he would if he had been anything but a clergyman."
"We cannot prove to the contrary, to be sure; but I wish
you a better fate, Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man
Mansfield Park |
