| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: the sinning party."
Lucetta's countenance lost its sparkle. "He turned out to
be a man I should be afraid to marry," she pleaded. "Really
afraid! And it was not till after my renewed promise that I
knew it."
"Then there is only one course left to honesty. You must
remain a single woman."
"But think again! Do consider----"
"I am certain," interrupted her companion hardily. "I have
guessed very well who the man is. My father; and I say it
is him or nobody for you."
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: most Americans. "And so if you had a sister back East, and she and you
were all there was of you any more, and she hadn't seen you since--not
since you first took to staying out nights, and she started to visit you,
you'd not tell her 'Fie for shame'?"
"I'd travel my money's length to meet her!" said I.
A wave of pain crossed her face. "Nate didn't know," she said then,
lightly. "You see, Nate's only a boy, and regular thoughtless about
writing."
Ah! So this Nate never wrote, and his sister loved and championed him!
Many such stray Nates and Bobs and Bills galloped over Wyoming, lost and
forgiven.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: education, condition. Organization may reduce the power of the
will to nothing, as in some idiots; and from this zero the scale
mounts upwards by slight gradations. Education is only second to
nature. Imagine all the infants born this year in Boston and
Timbuctoo to change places! Condition does less, but "Give me
neither poverty nor riches" was the prayer of Agur, and with good
reason. If there is any improvement in modern theology, it is in
getting out of the region of pure abstractions and taking these
every-day working forces into account. The great theological
question now heaving and throbbing in the minds of Christian men is
this:-
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
