| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: expected another attack from the assembled party.
With Mr. Allen to support her, she felt no dread of
the event: but she would gladly be spared a contest,
where victory itself was painful, and was heartily rejoiced
therefore at neither seeing nor hearing anything of them.
The Tilneys called for her at the appointed time;
and no new difficulty arising, no sudden recollection,
no unexpected summons, no impertinent intrusion to disconcert
their measures, my heroine was most unnaturally able to fulfil
her engagement, though it was made with the hero himself.
They determined on walking round Beechen Cliff, that noble
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of
the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed,
twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one
fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep,
black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are
seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded
by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve
four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year
old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune,
through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck
plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and
A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: temperate, and orderly, can he not thus eat acceptably to the
Gods? But when you call for warm water, and your slave does not
answer, or when he answers brings it lukewarm, or is not even
found to be in the house at all, then not to be vexed nor burst
with anger, is not that acceptable to the Gods?
"But how can one endure such people?"
Slave, will you not endure your own brother, that has God to
his forefather, even as a son sprung from the same stock, and of
the same high descent as yourself? And if you are stationed in a
high position, are you therefor forthwith set up for a tyrant?
Remember who you are, and whom you rule, that they are by nature
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
