| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: self-conscious, and indeed ultimately expired in scepticism and
theology, but because it was to that city, and not to Athens, that
Rome turned for her models, and it was through the survival, such
as it was, of the Latin language that culture lived at all. When,
at the Renaissance, Greek literature dawned upon Europe, the soil
had been in some measure prepared for it. But, to get rid of the
details of history, which are always wearisome and usually
inaccurate, let us say generally, that the forms of art have been
due to the Greek critical spirit. To it we owe the epic, the
lyric, the entire drama in every one of its developments, including
burlesque, the idyll, the romantic novel, the novel of adventure,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: They crept out of their tunnel,
and hung about amongst the rocks
and bushes, listening anxiously.
Inside the house the racket was
fearful. The rabbit babies in the
oven woke up trembling; perhaps it
was fortunate they were shut up inside.
Everything was upset except the
kitchen table.
And everything was broken,
except the mantelpiece and the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: sword.
The Samnite with bent hams swept his axe alternately to the right and
left, at the same time warning Matho of the blows that were being
aimed at him. "Master, this way! that way! stoop down!"
Matho had lost his shoulder-pieces, his helmet, his cuirass; he was
completely naked, and more livid than the dead, with his hair quite
erect, and two patches of foam at the corners of his lips,--and his
sword whirled so rapidly that it formed an aureola around him. A stone
broke it near the guard; the Samnite was killed and the flood of
Carthaginians closed in, they touched Matho. Then he raised both his
empty hands towards heaven, closed his eyes, and, opening out his arms
Salammbo |
