| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by
the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate
propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern
on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact,
but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and
authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles,
there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills,
which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small
brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to
repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: exaggeration to say that they discuss nothing else with fully-awakened
interest. Commoner and less cultivated people, even when they form
societies for discussion, make a rule that politics and religion are
not to be mentioned, and take it for granted that no decent person
would attempt to discuss sex. The three subjects are feared because
they rouse the crude passions which call for furious gratification in
murder and rapine at worst, and, at best, lead to quarrels and
undesirable states of consciousness.
Even when this excuse of bad manners, ill temper, and brutishness (for
that is what it comes to) compels us to accept it from those adults
among whom political and theological discussion does as a matter of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: merit in their eyes; they are only grateful to him for the pleasure he
gives; they neither know nor care what it costs. Raoul became aware as
he returned from this visit how difficult it would be to hold the
reins of a love-affair in society, the ten-horsed chariot of
journalism, his dramas on the stage, and his generally involved
affairs.
"The paper will be wretched to-night," he thought, as he walked away.
"No article of mine, and only the second number, too!"
Madame Felix de Vandenesse drove three times to the Bois de Boulogne
without finding Raoul; the third time she came back anxious and
uneasy. The fact was that Nathan did not choose to show himself in the
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