| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: testing "the wonders of the shore," you may still study Natural
History in your own drawing-room, by looking a little into "the
wonders of the pond."
I am not jesting; a fresh-water aquarium, though by no means as
beautiful as a salt-water one, is even more easily established. A
glass jar, floored with two or three inches of pond-mud (which
should be covered with fine gravel to prevent the mud washing up);
a specimen of each of two water-plants which you may buy now at any
good shop in Covent Garden, Vallisneria spiralis (which is said to
give to the Canvas-backed duck of America its peculiar richness of
flavour), and Anacharis alsinastrum, that magical weed which,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Show Mrs. Cheveley out.
[MRS. CHEVELEY starts; then bows with somewhat exaggerated politeness
to LADY CHILTERN, who makes no sign of response. As she passes by
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, who is standing close to the door, she pauses
for a moment and looks him straight in the face. She then goes out,
followed by the servant, who closes the door after him. The husband
and wife are left alone. LADY CHILTERN stands like some one in a
dreadful dream. Then she turns round and looks at her husband. She
looks at him with strange eyes, as though she were seeing him for the
first time.]
LADY CHILTERN. You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: appealing to her sympathetic common sense.
"Isn't he a fool?" I said with feeling.
"Perfect idiot," she agreed warmly, looking at me straight with her
wide-open, earnest eyes and the dimple of a smile on her cheek.
"And that," I pointed out to her, "just to save twenty minutes or
so in meeting you."
We heard the anchor go down, and then she became very resolute and
threatening.
"Wait a bit. I'll teach him."
She went into her own room and shut the door, leaving me alone on
the verandah with my instructions. Long before the brig's sails
'Twixt Land & Sea |
