| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: be drawn, like a vine leaf, at night. Things became stiller and darker
at night. But the leaf-like veil was so fine, that lights lifted it,
voices crinkled it; he could see through it a figure stooping, hear,
coming close, going away, some dress rustling, some chain tinkling.
It was in this world that the wheel went over the person's foot.
Something, he remembered, stayed flourished up in the air, something
arid and sharp descended even there, like a blade, a scimitar, smiting
through the leaves and flowers even of that happy world and making it
shrivel and fall.
"It will rain," he remembered his father saying. "You won't be able to
go to the Lighthouse."
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: higher elements of the nation. There is a better (as well as a worse)
public opinion of which he seeks to lay hold; as there is also a deeper
current of human affairs in which he is borne up when the waves nearer the
shore are threatening him. He acknowledges that he cannot take the world
by force--two or three moves on the political chess board are all that he
can fore see--two or three weeks moves on the political chessboard are all
that he can foresee--two or three weeks or months are granted to him in
which he can provide against a coming struggle. But he knows also that
there are permanent principles of politics which are always tending to the
well-being of states--better administration, better education, the
reconciliation of conflicting elements, increased security against external
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: "I don't see how I can think of it at present, sir. You wouldn't
like to settle me on one of the farms, I suppose, and I don't think
she'd come to live in this house with all my brothers. It's a
different sort of life to what she's been used to."
"Not come to live in this house? Don't tell me. You ask her,
that's all," said the Squire, with a short, scornful laugh.
"I'd rather let the thing be, at present, sir," said Godfrey. "I
hope you won't try to hurry it on by saying anything."
"I shall do what I choose," said the Squire, "and I shall let you
know I'm master; else you may turn out and find an estate to drop
into somewhere else. Go out and tell Winthrop not to go to Cox's,
Silas Marner |
