| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Information: have learn'd nothing certain as yet--
Not even the way that old Ridley was gone:
Or with those securities what he had done:
Or whether they had been already call'd out:
If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt.
Twenty families ruin'd, they say: what was left,--
Unable to find any clew to the cleft
The old fox ran to earth in,--but join you as fast
As I could, my dear Alfred?*
*These events, it is needless to say, Mr. Morse,
Took place when Bad News as yet travell'd by horse;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: Catherine accepted this kindness with gratitude,
and they continued as they were for three minutes longer,
when Isabella, who had been talking to James on the other
side of her, turned again to his sister and whispered,
"My dear creature, I am afraid I must leave you,
your brother is so amazingly impatient to begin; I know
you will not mind my going away, and I dare say John will
be back in a moment, and then you may easily find me out."
Catherine, though a little disappointed, had too much good
nature to make any opposition, and the others rising up,
Isabella had only time to press her friend's hand and say,
Northanger Abbey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I will, then," said I, my voice almost strangled with the thumping
of my heart. "If you continue to indulge Mr. Alexander, you are
following in your father's footsteps. Beware, my lord, lest (when
he grows up) your son should follow in the Master's."
I had never meant to put the thing so crudely; but in the extreme
of fear, there comes a brutal kind of courage, the most brutal
indeed of all; and I burnt my ships with that plain word. I never
had the answer. When I lifted my head, my lord had risen to his
feet, and the next moment he fell heavily on the floor. The fit or
seizure endured not very long; he came to himself vacantly, put his
hand to his head, which I was then supporting, and says he, in a
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