| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: how easy it is to hurt me; and I'm too small to defend myself against
Johnny.
MRS TARLETON. Johnny: how often have I told you that you must not
bully the little ones. I thought youd outgrown all that.
HYPATIA. _[angrily]_ I do declare, mamma, that Johnny's brutality
makes it impossible to live in the house with him.
JOHNNY. _[deeply hurt]_ It's twenty-seven years, mother, since you
had that row with me for licking Robert and giving Hypatia a black eye
because she bit me. I promised you then that I'd never raise my hand
to one of them again; and Ive never broken my word. And now because
this young whelp begins to cry out before he's hurt, you treat me as
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: offences which justly divide friends, far more acquaintances. Your
letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage is a document which, in my sight,
if you had filled me with bread when I was starving, if you had sat
up to nurse my father when he lay a-dying, would yet absolve me
from the bonds of gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, of the
process of canonisation to be aware that, a hundred years after the
death of Damien, there will appear a man charged with the painful
office of the DEVIL'S ADVOCATE. After that noble brother of mine,
and of all frail clay, shall have lain a century at rest, one shall
accuse, one defend him. The circumstance is unusual that the
devil's advocate should be a volunteer, should be a member of a
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: together, wonderful events had already occurred. The good
old king, notwithstanding that he had lived eighty-two years,
had all at once given up the ghost; another king had mounted
the throne; a royal duke had died suddenly,--another, in
France, had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in
all parts of the kingdom; the bloody scenes at Manchester; the
great plot of Cato Street; and above all, the queen had returned
to England! All these sinister events are recounted by Mr.
Skryme, with a mysterious look, and a dismal shake of the
head; and being taken with his drugs, and associated in the
minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, bottled
|