| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: dian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian,
and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in
divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of
the church. But little do men perceive what soli-
tude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is
not company; and faces are but a gallery of pic-
tures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where
there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a
little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in
a great town friends are scattered; so that there is
not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: The streets are all exactly straight from north to south, with
lanes or alleys, which they call rows, crossing them in straight
lines also from east to west, so that it is the most regular built
town in England, and seems to have been built all at once; or that
the dimensions of the houses and extent of the streets were laid
out by consent.
They have particular privileges in this town and a jurisdiction by
which they can try, condemn, and execute in especial cases without
waiting for a warrant from above; and this they exerted once very
smartly in executing a captain of one of the king's ships of war in
the reign of King Charles II. for a murder committed in the street,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: affliction wasn't in mourning now; he detached his arm from his
companion's to grasp the hand of the older friend. He coloured as
well as smiled in the strong light of the shop when Stransom raised
a tentative hat to the lady. Stransom had just time to see she was
pretty before he found himself gaping at a fact more portentous.
"My dear fellow, let me make you acquainted with my wife."
Creston had blushed and stammered over it, but in half a minute, at
the rate we live in polite society, it had practically become, for
our friend, the mere memory of a shock. They stood there and
laughed and talked; Stransom had instantly whisked the shock out of
the way, to keep it for private consumption. He felt himself
|
