| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: influence enough to send him back to his wife. I have still another motive
for your coming: Mr. Johnson leaves London next Tuesday; he is going for
his health to Bath, where, if the waters are favourable to his constitution
and my wishes, he will be laid up with the gout many weeks. During his
absence we shall be able to chuse our own society, and to have true
enjoyment. I would ask you to Edward Street, but that once he forced from
me a kind of promise never to invite you to my house; nothing but my being
in the utmost distress for money should have extorted it from me. I can get
you, however, a nice drawing-room apartment in Upper Seymour Street, and we
may be always together there or here; for I consider my promise to Mr.
Johnson as comprehending only (at least in his absence) your not sleeping
Lady Susan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: be wider." Were hers, perhaps, too wide as it was? She looked
at her limp raiment, piling itself up on bed and sofa, and
understood that, according to Violet's standards, and that of
all her set, those dresses, which Nick had thought so original
and exquisite, were already commonplace and dowdy, fit only to
be passed on to poor relations or given to one's maid. And Susy
would have to go on wearing them till they fell to bits-or
else .... Well, or else begin the old life again in some new
form ....
She laughed aloud at the turn of her thoughts. Dresses? How
little they had mattered a few short weeks ago! And now,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: the same, even in the time to come. Do thou as thou wilt,
and as seems thee good.'
Then Poseidon, shaker of the earth, answered him:
'Straightway would I do even as thou sayest, O god of the
dark clouds; but thy wrath I always hold in awe and avoid.
Howbeit, now I fain would smite a fair ship of the
Phaeacians, as she comes home from a convoy on the misty
deep, that thereby they may learn to hold their hands, and
cease from giving escort to men; and I would overshadow
their city with a great mountain.'
And Zeus the gatherer of the clouds, answered him, saying:
The Odyssey |
