| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: say in a very serious tone, "I shall never marry."
Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was; and after a
moment's debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied,
"Never marry!--This is a new resolution."
"It is one that I shall never change, however."
After another short hesitation, "I hope it does not proceed from--
I hope it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton?"
"Mr. Elton indeed!" cried Harriet indignantly.--"Oh! no"--and Emma
could just catch the words, "so superior to Mr. Elton!"
She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed
no farther?--should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?--
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: in the neatest possible terms and with a pinch of snuff between finger
and thumb. As a Frenchman--quite apart from Newman's napoleons--M. Nioche
loved conversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown rusty.
As a Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of things, and--still as
a Frenchman--when his knowledge was at fault he could supply its lapses
with the most convenient and ingenious hypotheses. The little shrunken
financier was intensely delighted to have questions asked him, and he scraped
together information, by frugal processes, and took notes, in his little
greasy pocket-book, of incidents which might interest his munificent friend.
He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to
frequent another cafe, where more newspapers were taken and his postprandial
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: preceded clear religious understanding and extends far beyond its
range.
In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to
true belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing.
The essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere.
I am passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own
mind, and to make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and
particularly to other people who may seem to be feeling with me; I
do perceive that error is evil if only because a faith based on
confused conceptions and partial understandings may suffer
irreparable injury through the collapse of its substratum of ideas.
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