| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: against the wishes of them that love you, and are akin to you,
without a good and sufficient reason in your own conscience. I've
no right to say anything about my being sorry: you know well
enough what cause I have to put you above every other friend I've
got; and if it had been ordered so that you could ha' been my
sister, and lived with us all our lives, I should ha' counted it
the greatest blessing as could happen to us now. But Seth tells
me there's no hope o' that: your feelings are different, and
perhaps I'm taking too much upon me to speak about it."
Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence for some
yards, till they came to the stone stile, where, as Adam had
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That
seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right. It might
be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one, how
could it?
Five Months Later
It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by holding to
her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then
falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has
no tail--as yet--and no fur, except on its head. It still keeps
on growing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their
growth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous--since our
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: fault, if all the children which have been, may, can, shall, will, or ought
to be begotten, come with their heads foremost into the world:--but believe
me, dear Toby, the accidents which unavoidably way-lay them, not only in
the article of our begetting 'em--though these, in my opinion, are well
worth considering,--but the dangers and difficulties our children are beset
with, after they are got forth into the world, are enow--little need is
there to expose them to unnecessary ones in their passage to it.--Are these
dangers, quoth my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon my father's knee, and
looking up seriously in his face for an answer,--are these dangers greater
now o'days, brother, than in times past? Brother Toby, answered my father,
if a child was but fairly begot, and born alive, and healthy, and the
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