| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: it is nothing unusual."
"So much the worse!" thought Catherine; such ill-timed
exercise was of a piece with the strange unseasonableness
of his morning walks, and boded nothing good.
After an evening, the little variety and seeming
length of which made her peculiarly sensible of Henry's
importance among them, she was heartily glad to be dismissed;
though it was a look from the general not designed for
her observation which sent his daughter to the bell.
When the butler would have lit his master's candle, however,
he was forbidden. The latter was not going to retire.
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: You know your native language, I said, and therefore you must be able to
tell what you feel about this.
Certainly, he said.
In order, then, that I may form a conjecture whether you have temperance
abiding in you or not, tell me, I said, what, in your opinion, is
Temperance?
At first he hesitated, and was very unwilling to answer: then he said that
he thought temperance was doing things orderly and quietly, such things for
example as walking in the streets, and talking, or anything else of that
nature. In a word, he said, I should answer that, in my opinion,
temperance is quietness.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: He was thinking of his plow, his two black oxen--
young beasts they were, who had worked in the fields
only two years--of his two acres of well-fertilized corn.
The face of his young wife came to his mind, clear and
true as life: he saw her strong, soft features, so gracious
when she smiled on her husband, so proudly fierce to-
ward strangers. But when he tried to conjure up the
image of his son, his efforts were vain; he had for-
gotten. . . .
He reached the camp. Lying among the farrows, the
soldiers slept with the horses, heads bowed, eyes closed.
The Underdogs |
