| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: "You had better go on," said she.
He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, "the pianoforte!
Ah! That was the act of a very, very young man, one too young
to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much
exceed the pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot
comprehend a man's wishing to give a woman any proof of affection
which he knows she would rather dispense with; and he did
know that she would have prevented the instrument's coming if she could."
After this, he made some progress without any pause.
Frank Churchill's confession of having behaved shamefully
was the first thing to call for more than a word in passing.
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: the praises of Lysis; and if he is a little intoxicated, there is every
likelihood that we may have our sleep murdered with a cry of Lysis. His
performances in prose are bad enough, but nothing at all in comparison with
his verse; and when he drenches us with his poems and other compositions,
it is really too bad; and worse still is his manner of singing them to his
love; he has a voice which is truly appalling, and we cannot help hearing
him: and now having a question put to him by you, behold he is blushing.
Who is Lysis? I said: I suppose that he must be young; for the name does
not recall any one to me.
Why, he said, his father being a very well-known man, he retains his
patronymic, and is not as yet commonly called by his own name; but,
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: helmet, who made explanations and pointed to the round bullet
hole in the floor and the smash in the panel of the passage upon
which the still vicious missile had spent the residue of its
energy. All the faces were grave and earnest: they were the
faces of sober, blond, blue-eyed men accustomed to obedience and
an orderly life, to whom this waste, wet, painful thing that had
been a comrade came almost as strangely as it did to Bert.
A peal of wild laughter sounded down the passage in the direction
of the little gallery and something spoke--almost shouted--in
German, in tones of exultation.
Other voices at a lower, more respectful pitch replied.
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