| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: "In short," said he, "perhaps, Miss Woodhouse--I think you can
hardly be quite without suspicion"--
He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly
knew what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something
absolutely serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself
to speak, therefore, in the hope of putting it by, she calmly said,
"You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit, then"--
He was silent. She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting
on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner.
She heard him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had
cause to sigh. He could not believe her to be encouraging him.
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: summer and as rain in harvest.
That was the first mystery of life to me. But, while my best energy
was given to the study of painting, I had put collateral effort,
more prudent if less enthusiastic, into that of architecture; and in
this I could not complain of meeting with no sympathy. Among
several personal reasons which caused me to desire that I might give
this, my closing lecture on the subject of art here, in Ireland, one
of the chief was, that in reading it, I should stand near the
beautiful building,--the engineer's school of your college,--which
was the first realization I had the joy to see, of the principles I
had, until then, been endeavouring to teach! but which, alas, is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: not amid bloomless or fading beauties, whether of body or soul or aught
else, but in the place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides.
Concerning the beauty of the god I have said enough; and yet there remains
much more which I might say. Of his virtue I have now to speak: his
greatest glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any
god or any man; for he suffers not by force if he suffers; force comes not
near him, neither when he acts does he act by force. For all men in all
things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary
agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is
justice. And not only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for Temperance
is the acknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires, and no pleasure
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