| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: half-dozen well-to-do farmers, with their apple-cheeked families;
and on the clean old women, mostly farm-labourers' wives, with
their bit of snow-white cap-border under their black bonnets, and
with their withered arms, bare from the elbow, folded passively
over their chests. For none of the old people held books--why
should they? Not one of them could read. But they knew a few
"good words" by heart, and their withered lips now and then moved
silently, following the service without any very clear
comprehension indeed, but with a simple faith in its efflcacy to
ward off harm and bring blessing. And now all faces were visible,
for all were standing up--the little children on the seats peeping
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: hoggish perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard
of the palace. It was a sight to bring tears into one's eyes
(and I hope none of you will be cruel enough to laugh at it),
to see the poor creatures go snuffing along, picking up here a
cabbage leaf and there a turnip top, and rooting their noses in
the earth for whatever they could find. In their sty, moreover,
they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been born
so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put their feet in
the trough, and gobbled up their victuals in a ridiculous
hurry; and, when there was nothing more to be had, they made a
great pile of themselves among some unclean straw, and fell
Tanglewood Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on their
school Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in 'Bingen on
the Rhine,' 'A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,' or in
'The Soldier's Funeral,' in the declamation of which I was held to
have surpassed myself. 'Robert's voice,' said the master on this
memorable occasion, 'is not strong, but impressive': an opinion
which I was fool enough to carry home to my father; who roasted me
for years in consequence. I am sure one should not be so deliciously
tickled by the humorous pieces:-
'What, crusty? cries Will in a taking,
Who would not be crusty with half a year's baking?'
|
