| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: which marched with the Cimbri to Italy, and with the Franks across the
Rhine, with the Varagians into Russia, and the Alamani into Switzerland;
which peopled Scandinavia, and penetrated to Britain; whose priestesses had
their shrines in German forests, and gave out the oracle for peace or war.
We have in us the blood of a womanhood that was never bought and never
sold; that wore no veil, and had no foot bound; whose realised ideal of
marriage was sexual companionship and an equality in duty and labour; who
stood side by side with the males they loved in peace or war, and whose
children, when they had borne them, sucked manhood from their breasts, and
even through their foetal existence heard a brave heart beat above them.
We are women of a breed whose racial ideal was no Helen of Troy, passed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: perhaps accounted, in some degree, for its never having been
productive of any other effect than the transmission to Chigwell
at various times and at a vast expense, of some five-and-forty
runaways varying from six years old to twelve.
Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes looked mysteriously at this composition, at
each other, and at old John. From the time he had pasted it up
with his own hands, Mr Willet had never by word or sign alluded to
the subject, or encouraged any one else to do so. Nobody had the
least notion what his thoughts or opinions were, connected with it;
whether he remembered it or forgot it; whether he had any idea that
such an event had ever taken place. Therefore, even while he
Barnaby Rudge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: performing of a series of what I might call "agreeable surprises," in
the shape of twitchings of the brow and lips and certain motions of
the tongue. In short, he did all that a man is apt to do when he is
not only alone, but also certain that he is handsome and that no one
is regarding him through a chink. Finally he tapped himself lightly on
the chin, and said, "Ah, good old face!" In the same way, when he
started to dress himself for the ceremony, the level of his high
spirits remained unimpaired throughout the process. That is to say,
while adjusting his braces and tying his tie, he shuffled his feet in
what was not exactly a dance, but might be called the entr'acte of a
dance: which performance had the not very serious result of setting a
Dead Souls |
