| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at
this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."
I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so.
His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a
moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm
and grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming
glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble
exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still
possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety.
The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter--often an unconscious, but
still a truthful interpreter--in the eye. My eye rose to his; and
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: I wish to live. I will live if I can. Ah, what could she
do without me! . . . Does she often speak of me?--but I know she does."
"Oh, all the time--all the time!"
"My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came home?"
"Yes--the first moment. She would not wait to take off her things."
"I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I knew it
without asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The petted wife
knows she is loved, but she makes her husband tell her so every day,
just for the joy of hearing it. . . . She used the pen this time.
That is better; the pencil-marks could rub out, and I should grieve
for that. Did you suggest that she use the pen?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: rather practising upon the simplicity of Odysseus, whom he regarded as an
ancient, and thinking that he would get the better of him by his own
cunning and falsehood?
HIPPIAS: No, I do not agree with you, Socrates; but I believe that
Achilles is induced to say one thing to Ajax, and another to Odysseus in
the innocence of his heart, whereas Odysseus, whether he speaks falsely or
truly, speaks always with a purpose.
SOCRATES: Then Odysseus would appear after all to be better than Achilles?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why, were not the voluntary liars only just now shown to be
better than the involuntary?
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