| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Some that she but held off to draw him on;
And others laugh'd at her and Philip too,
As simple folks that knew not their own minds;
And one, in whom all evil fancies clung
Like serpent eggs together, laughingly
Would hint a worse in either. Her own son
Was silent, tho' he often look'd his wish;
But evermore the daughter prest upon her
To wed the man so dear to all of them
And lift the household out of poverty;
And Philip's rosy face contracting grew
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of
improvement with his intellect. And now, as his highest effort
and inevitable development,--as the bright and gorgeous flower,
and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor,--he had produced
the Unpardonable Sin!
"What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" said Ethan
Brand to himself. "My task is done, and well done!"
Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and
ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone
circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the
structure. It was a space of perhaps ten feet across, from edge
The Snow Image |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: yet he could not refuse it for fear of hurting those who felt
sure they were giving him much pleasure by this appointment, and
because it flattered the lowest part of his nature. It pleased
him to see himself in a mirror in his gold-embroidered uniform,
and to accept the deference paid him by some people because of
his position.
Something of the same kind happened when he married. A very
brilliant match, from a worldly point of view, was arranged for
him, and he married chiefly because by refusing he would have had
to hurt the young lady who wished to be married to him, and those
who arranged the marriage, and also because a marriage with a
Resurrection |
