| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: the King should happen to have died, the astrologer plainly
foretold it; otherwise it passes but for the pious ejaculation of a
loyal subject; though it unluckily happened in some of their
almanacks that poor King William was prayed for many months after
he was dead, because it fell out that he died about the beginning
of the year.
To mention no more of their impertinent predictions: what have we
to do with their advertisements about pills and drink for disease?
or their mutual quarrels in verse and prose of Whig and Tory,
wherewith the stars have little to do?
Having long observed and lamented these, and a hundred other abuses
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: immense to me. Such as this mistake was I could now only look it
in the face and accept it. I knew where I had failed, but it was
exactly where I couldn't have succeeded. I had been sent down to
be personal and then in point of fact hadn't been personal at all:
what I had dispatched to London was just a little finicking
feverish study of my author's talent. Anything less relevant to
Mr. Pinhorn's purpose couldn't well be imagined, and he was visibly
angry at my having (at his expense, with a second-class ticket)
approached the subject of our enterprise only to stand off so
helplessly. For myself, I knew but too well what had happened, and
how a miracle - as pretty as some old miracle of legend - had been
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: most vigorous efforts made for her entertainment, is not exhilarating,
even to a Cabinet Minister.
"Shall I find out if your ladyship's coach is ready," he said
at last, tentatively.
"Oh, thank you. . .thank you. . .if you would be so kind. . .I
fear I am but sorry company. . .but I am really tired. . .and,
perhaps, would be best alone.
But Lord Fancourt went, and still Chauvelin did not come. Oh!
what had happened? She felt Armand's fate trembling in the
balance. . .she feared--now with a deadly fear that Chauvelin HAD
failed, and that the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel had proved elusive
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
