| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: my bidding, and before a great multitude, of people, a barren fig-
tree withered away. All things that this man has done I have done
also. And yet they have not crucified me.'
THE HOUSE OF JUDGMENT
And there was silence in the House of Judgment, and the Man came
naked before God.
And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast
shown cruelty to those who were in need of succour, and to those
who lacked help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor
called to thee and thou didst not hearken, and thine ears were
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: superfluous pork and black puddings are suggestive of charity in
well-to-do families; and Silas's misfortune had brought him
uppermost in the memory of housekeepers like Mrs. Osgood.
Mr. Crackenthorp, too, while he admonished Silas that his money had
probably been taken from him because he thought too much of it and
never came to church, enforced the doctrine by a present of pigs'
pettitoes, well calculated to dissipate unfounded prejudices against
the clerical character. Neighbours who had nothing but verbal
consolation to give showed a disposition not only to greet Silas and
discuss his misfortune at some length when they encountered him in
the village, but also to take the trouble of calling at his cottage
Silas Marner |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Hold me fast against my will.
While those magic chains confine me,
To her will I must resign me.
Ah, the change in truth is great!
Love! kind love! release me straight!
1775.
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TO BELINDA.
[This song was also written for Lily. Goethe mentions, at the end
of his Autobiography, that he overheard her singing it one
evening after he had taken his last farewell of her.]
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