| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: write essays on the lectures, and the names in order of
merit are put in conspicuous places. You see how
your little germ has grown? The illiterate middle-class
of your days has quite passed away."
"About the public elementary schools," said
Graham. "Do you control them?"
The Surveyor-General did, "entirely." Now,
Graham, in his later democratic days, had taken a keen
interest in these and his questioning quickened. Certain
casual phrases that had fallen from the old man
with whom he had talked in the darkness recurred to
When the Sleeper Wakes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: most sport in a dark day, and the darkest and least fly in a bright or
clear day: and lastly note, that you are to repair upon any occasion to
your magazine-bag: and upon any occasion, vary and make them lighter
or sadder, according to your fancy, or the day.
And now I shall tell you, that the fishing with a natural-fly is excellent,
and affords much pleasure. They may be found thus: the May-fly,
usually in and about that month, near to the river-side, especially
against rain: the Oak-fly, on the butt or body of an oak or ash, from the
beginning of May to the end of August; it is a brownish fly and easy to
be so found, and stands usually with his head downward, that is to say,
towards the root of the tree: the small black-fly, or Hawthorn-fly, is to
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance,
they had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony,
driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of
the desert and giving to the hermit the beasts of the field as
his companions.
Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism
that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely
puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival.
It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was
never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice
of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
