| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: dissipating her pleasing visions. This solitude was chiefly
owing to the absence of Lady Ashton, who was at this time in
Edinburgh, watching the progress of some state-intrigue; the Lord
Keeper only received society out of policy or ostentation, and
was by nature rather reserved and unsociable; and thus no
cavalier appeared to rival or to obscure the ideal picture of
chivalrous excellence which Lucy had pictured to herself in the
Master of Ravenswood.
While Lucy indulged in these dreams, she made frequent visits to
old blind Alice, hoping it would be easy to lead her to talk on
the subject which at present she had so imprudently admitted to
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: "Who do you think has come, Katy?" puffed Mrs. Howard.
"I don't know. Who?"
"Mrs. Colvin, that was! Mrs. McCarty, that is."
Some of the very good-natured people laughed, and some of the
very fastidious ones turned up their noses, when they saw Mrs.
McCarty so warmly received by the bride; but she did not care who
laughed or who sneered; she was not too proud to welcome, in the
hour of prosperity and happiness, those who had been her friends
in adversity.
"Mrs. Howard, I congratulate you," said a fat man, who was
puffing and blowing at the heat of the room.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: freedom.
Many men on their release carry their prison about with them into
the air, and hide it as a secret disgrace in their hearts, and at
length, like poor poisoned things, creep into some hole and die.
It is wretched that they should have to do so, and it is wrong,
terribly wrong, of society that it should force them to do so.
Society takes upon itself the right to inflict appalling punishment
on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness,
and fails to realise what it has done. When the man's punishment
is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him
at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins. It is
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