| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: can so easily procure your ransom, think yourself in danger of
perpetual captivity? The purpose of my incursions is to increase
my riches, or, more property, to gather tribute. The sons of
Ishmael are the natural and hereditary lords of this part of the
continent, which is usurped by late invaders and low-born tyrants,
from whom we are compelled to take by the sword what is denied to
justice. The violence of war admits no distinction: the lance
that is lifted at guilt and power will sometimes fall on innocence
and gentleness.'
"'How little,' said I, 'did I expect that yesterday it should have
fallen upon me!'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: the foppery of the times. His green cassock and
vizard were now flung aside. His long luxuriant
hair was trained to flow in quaint tresses down his
richly furred cloak. His beard was closely shaved,
his doublet reached to the middle of his leg, and
the girdle which secured it, and at the same time
supported his ponderous sword, was embroidered
and embossed with gold work. We have already
noticed the extravagant fashion of the shoes at this
period, and the points of Maurice de Bracy's might
have challenged the prize of extravagance with the
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: prospective canonry that he forgot the four circumstances in which he
had seen, the night before, such threatening prognostics of a future
full of misery. The vicar was not a man to get up without a fire. He
rang to let Marianne know that he was awake and that she must come to
him; then he remained, as his habit was, absorbed in somnolent
musings. The servant's custom was to make the fire and gently draw him
from his half sleep by the murmured sound of her movements,--a sort of
music which he loved. Twenty minutes passed and Marianne had not
appeared. The vicar, now half a canon, was about to ring again, when
he let go the bell-pull, hearing a man's step on the staircase. In a
minute more the Abbe Troubert, after discreetly knocking at the door,
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