| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: that will act like that. It makes me feel so bad to think
you could let me go to Sereny Harper and make such a
fool of myself and never say a word."
This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness
of the morning had seemed to Tom a good joke be-
fore, and very ingenious. It merely looked mean and
shabby now. He hung his head and could not think
of anything to say for a moment. Then he said:
"Auntie, I wish I hadn't done it -- but I didn't think."
"Oh, child, you never think. You never think of
anything but your own selfishness. You could think
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: Xenophon and Plato, the very demigods of literature, though they
had sat at the feet of Socrates, sometimes forget themselves in
the pursuit of such pretty conceits? The former in his account of
the Spartan Polity has these words: 'Their voice you would no more
hear, than if they were of marble, their gaze is as immovable as
if they were cast in bronze. You would deem them more modest than
the very maidens in their eyes.' To speak of the pupils of the
eyes as modest maidens was a piece of absurdity becoming
Amphicrates rather than Xenophon; and then what a strange notion
to suppose that modesty is always without exception, expressed in
the eye!"--H. L. Howell, "Longinus," p. 8. See "Spectator," No.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: in these that he thought his last moments of life. Succour, all
that he could hope for, had come to him in the instant of his
extremity--and failed. There was nothing further for which
to hope.
The blacks were half-way across the clearing when Tarzan's
attention was attracted by the actions of one of the apes.
The beast was glaring toward one of the huts. Tarzan followed
his gaze. To his infinite relief and delight he saw the
stalwart form of Mugambi racing toward him.
The huge black was panting heavily as though from strenuous
physical exertion and nervous excitement. He rushed
The Beasts of Tarzan |
