| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: manliness which he furnished by his readiness ever to wage war against
the strongest enemies, whether of Sparta or of Hellas, placing himself
in the forefront of the contests decided on. If the enemy cared to
join issue in fair field he would not chance upon a victory won by
panic, but in stubborn battle, blow for blow, he mastered him; and set
up trophies worthy of the name, seeing that he left behind him
imperishable monuments of prowess, and bore away on his own body
indelible marks of the fury with which he fought;[1] so that, apart
from hearsay, by the evidence of men's eyes his valour stood approved.
[1] Or, "visible signs of the spirit," etc. See Plut. "Ages." xxxvi.
And amongst these we must not deem them trophies alone which he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: beneath the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles. The
bridal pair stood up before the minister. But the bride's cold
fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her
deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been
buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married.
If ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one
where they tolled the wedding knell. After performing the
ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing
happiness to the newmarried couple in a strain of mild pleasantry
that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a
cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a
Twice Told Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: proportion of married women to spinsters in New Zealand; or that the
net profits of Mrs. Hipsley's Bazaar had reached a total of five
pounds eight shillings and twopence half-penny?
Could any doubt as to the perfect sense and propriety of these
statements be disturbing her? No one could have guessed, from the look
of her, that she was disturbed at all. A pleasanter and saner woman
than Mary Datchet was never seen within a committee-room. She seemed a
compound of the autumn leaves and the winter sunshine; less poetically
speaking, she showed both gentleness and strength, an indefinable
promise of soft maternity blending with her evident fitness for honest
labor. Nevertheless, she had great difficulty in reducing her mind to
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