| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: for two or three nights' lost sleep as he best might.
PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY:
OR THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR.
A MATHEMATICAL STORY.
FACTS respecting an old arm-chair.
At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.
Seems but little the worse for wear.
That's remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke's day.
(One of his boys, perhaps you know,
Died, AT ONE HUNDRED, years ago.)
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: their nearest relations into affairs of the heart, but I hope, my dear
Reginald, that you will be superior to such as allow nothing for a father's
anxiety, and think themselves privileged to refuse him their confidence and
slight his advice. You must be sensible that as an only son, and the
representative of an ancient family, your conduct in life is most
interesting to your connections; and in the very important concern of
marriage especially, there is everything at stake--your own happiness, that
of your parents, and the credit of your name. I do not suppose that you
would deliberately form an absolute engagement of that nature without
acquainting your mother and myself, or at least, without being convinced
that we should approve of your choice; but I cannot help fearing that you
Lady Susan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: should ever tell the name of his god. Even the priests who praise
the gods all day long, and eat of their food with them, do not call
them by their right names.
MYRRHINA. Where are these gods ye worship?
FIRST MAN. We hide them in the folds of our tunics. We do not show
them to any one. If we showed them to any one they might leave us.
MYRRHINA. Where did ye meet with them?
FIRST MAN. They were given to us by an embalmer of the dead who had
found them in a tomb. We served him for seven years.
MYRRHINA. The dead are terrible. I am afraid of Death.
FIRST MAN. Death is not a god. He is only the servant of the gods.
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