| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: is my habit. From the door to the desk and from the desk to the
door. That shakes up my imagination gently; and don't you see what
a good thing it is that there's no window for her to fly out of?
The eternal standing as I write (I stop at that bureau and put it
down, when anything comes, and so we go on) was rather wearisome at
first, but we adopted it with an eye to the long run; you're in
better order - if your legs don't break down! - and you can keep it
up for more years. Oh we're practical - we're practical!" St.
George repeated, going to the table and taking up all mechanically
the bundle of proofs. But, pulling off the wrapper, he had a
change of attention that appealed afresh to our hero. He lost
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: mean by your prayer nothing else than that you desire to become good and
wise:--if, at least, things are good to the good and wise and evil to the
evil. But in that case, if virtue is acquired by instruction, it would
appear that you only pray to be taught what you do not know.
Hereupon I said to Prodicus that it was no misfortune to him if he had been
proved to be in error in supposing that the Gods immediately granted to us
whatever we asked:--if, I added, whenever you go up to the Acropolis you
earnestly entreat the Gods to grant you good things, although you know not
whether they can yield your request, it is as though you went to the doors
of the grammarian and begged him, although you had never made a study of
the art, to give you a knowledge of grammar which would enable you
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: round his legs. The calmness of advanced age
gives a solemnity to his manner. He is clean-
shaved; his lips are thin and sensitive; something
rigid and monarchal in the set of his features lends
a certain elevation to the character of his face. He
has been known to drive miles in the rain to see a
new kind of rose in somebody's garden, or a mon-
strous cabbage grown by a cottager. He loves to
hear tell of or to be shown something that he calls
'outlandish.' Perhaps it was just that outlandish-
ness of the man which influenced old Swaffer. Per-
Amy Foster |
