| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: don't go to sniveling; be a good girl, and mind the
main chance. I'll see you well settled in the world.
MARIA
I do not doubt your love, Sir, and it is my duty to
obey you. I will endeavour to make my duty and
inclination go hand in hand.
VAN ROUGH
Well, Well, Mary; do you be a good girl, mind the
main chance, and never mind inclination. Why, do
you know that I have been down in the cellar this
very morning to examine a pipe of Madeira which I
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: implanted in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a
protection which is constantly exerted for a fragile and
defenceless creature? Join love thereto, the warmth of gratitude
that all generous souls feel for the source of their pleasures,
and you have the explanation of many strange incongruities in
human nature.
After seven years of unclouded happiness, Goriot lost his wife.
It was very unfortunate for him. She was beginning to gain an
ascendency over him in other ways; possibly she might have
brought that barren soil under cultivation, she might have
widened his ideas and given other directions to his thoughts. But
 Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: in a drawer ever since the time that Gliles's grandmother was
alive. Each card had a great stain in the middle of its back,
produced by the touch of generations of damp and excited thumbs
now fleshless in the grave; and the kings and queens wore a
decayed expression of feature, as if they were rather an
impecunious dethroned race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums
than real regal characters. Every now and then the comparatively
few remarks of the players at the round game were harshly intruded
on by the measured jingle of Farmer Bawtree and the hollow-turner
from the back of the room:
"And I' will hold' a wa'-ger with you'
 The Woodlanders |